


Blood Bound

by RogueTiger



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Nicole and Waverly are central everyone else is background to the story, Unkillable gay squad, Vampire Nicole Haught, Vampire!Nicole, Vampires, Wayhaught - Freeform, Witch Waverly Earp, Witch!Waverly, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 17:33:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21183281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueTiger/pseuds/RogueTiger
Summary: After nearly six-hundred years wandering the earth as a vampire, Nicole Haught makes the mistake of getting off the bus and finds herself utterly beguiled and at the mercy of the young witch, Waverly Earp, who needs her help after Wynonna goes missing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Nicole Haught was no stranger to the cold. It had lived inside her veins and curled inside her heart for nearly six centuries since she had been turned into a vampire by the one others simply called Shae. Being no stranger to it didn’t mean she liked it any more than any of the locals foolish enough to brave the worst of the Canadian winter currently howling along what passed for the main road into the small town of Purgatory nestled within the Alberta wilderness.

As she looked around her at the collection of mismatched, squat buildings hunched along either side of the road, Nicole couldn’t help but think that calling Purgatory a town has been over-generous of the Bluntline Express driver, Carl, according to the poorly stitched name embroidered on his shirt, who had deposited her unceremoniously out by the old welcome sign with a grin and false apologies.

Unfortunately, it was too late to rip his throat out for the false advertising let alone the fact that he had abandoned her seven miles outside of Purgatory in the middle of the night. A fact that had come to light once the bus had pulled away with a hiss of hydraulics and blown the snow off the sign to reveal the ominous image of the typical 1950’s nuclear family grinning down at her along with the message in chipped and peeling paint that she was ‘only seven away’.

“Stupid Carl.” She dug the toe of her boot into a pile of dirty, starlit snow at the side of the road, just as she had the sign.

For almost anyone else, that would have meant seven miles away from death when the weather turned quicker than the bus had vanished into the night. But, Nicole was not most people. In fact, the storm worked in her favour, as it would negate any risk once the daylight hours came. And it could also serve to keep people isolated.

But…

Small towns could also pose a risk to her kind that the big cities didn’t.

There was less chance of there being cameras around spying on everyone’s every movement in a place like Purgatory but depending on the nature of the people, they were more likely to notice when a neighbour went missing and more likely to notice a stranger walking amongst them. It cut both ways and until she got a feel of the place, Nicole wouldn’t know if Purgatory was going to be a place to linger or not.

Just in case anyone was watching, Nicole made a show of shouldering the weight of her backpack even though it felt insubstantial and as light as a feather with the strength at her disposal. With the bag settled after her ruse, she crossed the empty street lined with a hodgepodge of buildings that had grown up the over the years, probably around the same time that the railroad had cut through the land, to follow the welcoming glow and sounds of life emanating from the rustic looking _Shorty’s Saloon_.

A sign on the door caught her eyes as her hand pressed against the worn wood. “Karaoke night cancelled? Thank god,” she whispered into the night. Although an event would have drawn people to the saloon, she was in no mood to have her heightened senses assaulted by the drunken caterwauling such nights invariably produced. The wall of heat drenched in the stench of unwashed humanity and cheap booze, and sound that greeted her as she pushed open the door was almost as bad and had Nicole wondering if they didn’t know of the storm brewing outside or just didn’t care about it?

Maybe they hoped that by the end of the night the saloon would be snowed in to the point that the owner would be forced to let them stay and continue drinking?

At least the people inside were too deep into the conversations and drink to pay her much mind as she walked down the steps, her boots thudding despite her light tread as crossed the ancient, barely polished wooden floor and sidled up to a gap at the end of the weirdly shaped bar out of view of the mirror along the back. Given the age of the building and the fixtures within, it looked old enough to have been made using silver and while everyone there looked pretty drunk or well on the way to it, even the drunk could be pretty perceptive when they noticed a missing reflection.

Two women were serving behind the busy bar. Both of them were petit compared to the clientele made up of mostly burly men and the occasional burly woman that were demanding their attention, but they were both more than capable of keeping them polite with their demands. One, a wiry older woman with short, tightly curling hair that was shot through with steely grey strands, and a deeply lined face, used a steely gaze to quell the demands thrown her way while the other woman used a ready smile and a soft tone to bring them to heel.

And, Nicole found she couldn’t look away from her.

She was beautiful, stunning even. With her long brown hair pulled back loosely off her face in a way that still left the bulk of it to flow down around slender shoulders in loose beachy curls. Her bare arms were slender but toned, the muscles working beneath tanned skin that looked silky soft to the touch. Her eyes were a soft, warm hazel that glinted with humour and almost vanished into half-moons as she smiled and laughed melodiously in response to something said to her.

Even after only watching her for a matter of minutes, Nicole felt an inexplicable wave of jealousy that her laugh wasn’t for her any more than the delicate touch of her hand was as she placed it upon the man’s where it lay upon the top of the bar and leaned closer to hear what he said.

Nicole couldn’t understand her reaction. She had travelled the world several times over. She had seen and loved women more beautiful than this one. But, there was just something about the girl standing on the other side of the bar that made a part of her ache to know her better in a way she’d only known one before.

The young woman tossed her hair beguilingly to the side in a move that exposed the long line of her neck to Nicole’s gaze. Nicole’s hand flew to cover her mouth as hunger flared through her in a pulsing wave and caused her canines to sharpen and lengthen with an embarrassing speed, ready to sink into the pulse she could see beating invitingly just beneath the surface of what she just knew to be softly scented skin.

Nearly six-hundred years old and the sight of a pretty neck had her acting like a freshly turned vampire with no self-control!

Needing to get away before her nature betrayed her, Nicole turned to leave but a sure but delicate brush of fingers sliding down her forearm to snag her wrist froze her to the spot and caught her breath within her lungs. Everything and everyone within the saloon seemed to fade around Nicole as she turned her head and followed a path that started at the surprisingly cool hand touching her and ended at the hazel eyes fixed intently upon her. As their eyes touched, her expression became almost shy, pulling Nicole in.

“Sorry I kept you waiting so long.”

“You didn’t,” Nicole found herself assuring her as she slid back onto the barstool, her hand still captive within hers as though the woman was afraid that she would disappear if she let go even for a moment. Fingers traced delicate patterns across her wrists and Nicole felt her pulse surge not unpleasantly in response.

There was a niggling voice whispering at the back of Nicole’s mind, telling her she was stepping into a trap of some kind. It was a voice that had served her well over her lifetime and one she rarely ignored. But, she found herself brushing it aside as the woman smiled warmly, enticingly.

“What can I get you then?”

A nibble at your soft throat.

Time in your bed.

An eternity together.

“A cappuccino to go?” Nicole froze, the heat of a blush rising through her cheeks as the woman tilted her head and looked around the bar, drawing her attention to the crowd and the absurdity of her request given where she was.

“You want a coffee?”

“I— I meant a whiskey! Yeah, a whiskey,” Nicole recovered not at all gracefully as her eyes fell upon a bottle standing on display at the back of the bar and used the label for inspiration and salvation. “Neat. No ice. Please?”

Nicole didn’t really want her hand to be released but at the same time, she needed a breather from the woman to attempt to recover some semblance of her usual poise and control. But, poise and control were out of luck as, instead of leaving to get the bottle already out, the beguiling beauty reached under the edge of the bar almost blindly and deftly brought forth a clean tumbler and a bottle of whiskey that had a hint of dust marring the deep green of the glass. With a soft tut of disapproval, she dusted off the bottle and expertly eased the cork loose and poured a generous shot of the deep amber liquid into the tumbler.

Fishing her wallet out of her jacket, Nicole found her attempt to open it blocked by another enticing touch of a hand upon hers and once again, she sank into hazel eyes as she looked at her questioningly.

“First drink is on me.”

“That doesn’t seem like a good—”

“I mean it.”

“But—”

“Tell me your name?”

Nicole’s brows beetled together, the hair on the nape of her neck standing up on end at the insistence in her voice. The demand. And the voice was back, screaming into the darkness of her mind the reminder that names were power not to be given freely or lightly.

“Nicole. Nicole Haught. And you are?”

“Waverly! Will you stop your jabbering girl! We’ve got thirsty customers waiting to be served!”

“On my way, Gus! I’ll be back. Wait for me?”

Nicole found herself nodding dumbly as Waverly eased back over the bar from where she had leaned over to whisper her request right against her ear before turning in a flurry of brunette hair that left behind the enticing scent of vanilla and coconut that clung to Nicole’s flesh where it had brushed across her cheek.

**********

Nicole talked herself into staying in _Shorty’s_ for one drink. One drink only! But every time she made to leave, Waverly seemed to sense her intention no matter how busy the bar and turned up before her, filling up her glass with another shot of whiskey and offering up a word or a touch that was deliberately flirty and had Nicole relaxing back into her position at the bar like a bewitched, love-struck puppy.

It would be pathetic if she could have been bothered enough to care.

Before Nicole knew it, without her even realising it was happening, the bar was mostly empty with just a few stragglers slumped over tables left to be ushered out into the cold and sent on their way. Waverly had moved around from behind the bar at some point during the night and was gathering up glasses between stopping to pour a drink for her, or sit or stand beside her to chat while she had time to spare.

“I’d better get going soon,” never had Nicole regretted words so much in her life as right then as Waverly’s face dropped and her smile left her lips and eyes. “I haven’t found anywhere to sleep yet and I don’t think your aunt would like me slumming it in the bathroom.” She smiled as the woman in question gave them a disapproving glower that had Waverly giving a light laugh, which in turn had Nicole’s jaded heart clattering against her ribs in delight for being in part the cause of it.

It was ridiculous how smitten she was with Waverly. She was an ancient creature of the night and she had become ancient, surviving many of her kind, by being careful. And yet, here she was, lingering in a new place instead of getting a good lay of the land, finding somewhere safe to lay her head and making sure her hunger was sated before the sun rose.

Just the thought of it had her teeth itching but, it was a different hunger that had her gaze flicking to Waverly’s throat as the woman chose that moment to flick her hair over her shoulder again. If she didn’t know any better, Nicole would swear it was a deliberate move on Waverly’s part. And while it wouldn’t be unwelcome, she felt that Waverly was too innocent for such games. Even though she had lavished attention on her, she had been just as attentive of everyone else. Thinking otherwise was foolish.

And curse her already a thousand times over for wanting to be foolish for this woman.

“Stay with me.”

“What?” The word came out of Nicole as a startled squeak, her eyes flying wide at the invitation. Waverly’s hand was back on hers again, sending licks of fire racing up her arm and took up residence at the base of her skull and between her thighs as Waverly’s fingers moved over her forearm as she stepped closer now that there was no longer any bar between them.

“There’s nowhere decent to stay in town that I would recommend even to my worst enemy and, well, unless I’m really wrong about what’s going on here, and I hope I’m not, I would like to see where _this_ goes.”

Nicole’s eyes followed the gesture Waverly’s hand made in the heated air between their bodies. Every half-thought daydream wrought by the slightest touch and attention Waverly had lavished on her since she had come into _Shorty’s_ and the promise of more besides suddenly sprang to life within Nicole and left her incapable of speech as she looked at her expectantly.

“I mean, if I’m wrong there’s a perfectly good couch you can crash on but everywhere in town really is the pits.”

Nicole gently captured Waverly’s hand and eased her back into her space as she grew flustered and tried to step away with her dignity intact. “You’re not wrong, Waverly,” she huskily assured her. “I would like to see where _this_ goes too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Waverly’s smile was bright and eager. The way her white teeth sank into enticingly into her bottom lip as she peered up at her from beneath thick lashes as she stepped between Nicole’s parted legs until Nicole could feel the heat and weight of her body against the inside of her thighs had her struggling to hold a whimper back behind lengthened fangs.

She needed to feed. And soon. She was overdue and the last thing she wanted was to spoil their night together by inadvertently taking too much from Waverly and leaving her too weak from it.

Or worse.

“I’d- erm, I’m just going to go freshen up,” she gestured towards the bathrooms she’d spotted near to what looked to be a door down to the basement.

“Okay. I won’t be much longer here, just need to kick the stragglers out, and then we can head out. Want me to hold your backpack behind the bar?”

Remembering almost belatedly to act like it was heavy to her, Nicole handed it over. The relief on Waverly’s face once she had her hands upon it, gave Nicole pause but she let it slide as Waverly leaned back toward her, her fingers dancing along her collar at the nape of her neck as she gave her a quick kiss to her cheek that grazed across the corner of her mouth and sent a lightning bolt of pure wanton heat zigzagging through her body.

After that brazen move from Waverly, it was a miracle that Nicole even made it to the bathroom as her legs felt as unsteady and reliable as a newborn foal’s. Which didn’t go unnoticed going by the giggle from Waverly as she stumbled and bumped into a table or two along the way.

The bathroom was quiet and dimly lit as she entered. There were switches by the door to turn on more lights but Nicole had no need for them and left it to the bare fluorescent strip light flickering weakly as though it was trying to decide if it wanted to give up or fight on a little longer. Instinctively, Nicole checked the three stalls for signs of life before putting herself near the sinks and the mirrors hanging behind them. Thankfully, her reflection stared back at her from the old but more modern mirrors but with a glance, Nicole could see the gauntness around her cheeks and the red starting to creep into her eyes all in response to her hunger.

She turned on the taps as the shuffle of feet alerted her to movement outside the bathroom door coming from the direction of the basement.

What had they been doing in the basement?

The people went into the men’s and she was left alone. Splashing water over her face, she stared at her reflection and willed the red in her eyes to calm down. A little wasn’t so bad as it could blend with the natural brown of her eyes but too much and there was no mistaking that she was anything other than different from most of the humanity she walked amongst.

“I thought Waverly dumped you?”

Nicole stiffened, her head cocking to the side as voices from the men’s bathroom drifted to her through the vents joining the two bathrooms together.

“Pete, Waverly dumps me at least once a week. It’s just foreplay, man. She gets huffy over something—”

“Something being you groping Stephanie Jones’ tits.”

“Exactly! Meaningless stuff. Once she calms down we make up.”

“Yeah, and how does that go?”

“Fucking amazing! I tell you, nothing like a little friendly competition to spur a chick into putting out more! And I tell you, when motivated, Waverly is a filly that loves to be ridden hard by this stallion!”

“I don’t know, man. Waverly didn’t act like she was all that ‘motivated’ when she saw you earlier.”

“Yeah. I remember hearing ‘fuck off, Champ’ amongst all the other cussing she was throwing at us along with a couple of empty beer bottles before Gus chucked us out.”

“Fucking sucks, man! Never even got to finish my damn beer cause of your sorry ass!”

“Which is why we’re going to have to motivate her. Soon as she heads down to the basement to do her last check for stray drunks… she’ll get all the motivation she needs to convince her she needs a prime stud like Champ Hardy to protect her.”

Nicole couldn’t tell if they were talking about simply scaring Waverly or if they were actually planning on raping as it sounded, her but anger burned as hot as hellfire within her at their sickening words and the threat behind them.

“Come on!”

“Dude, can I go first this time?”

“Fuck no! You know I hate sloppy seconds!”

“Only cause your pencil dick is so small it slips out when you follow anyone else!”

Nicole’s ears buzzed with white noise and the edge of the sink cracked as her hands tightened on the porcelain. The red of her eyes reflected off the mirror, filling the bathroom with the glow of the hellfire she was about to unleash upon them!

“Waverly, hun! Check the basement is all locked up for me before you leave!”

“On it, Gus!”

Nicole moved fast, her body little more than a blur as she left the bathroom and slipped through the basement door, locking it behind her. She could have simply diverted Waverly from her path but that would still leave the three she had heard speaking free to prey upon someone else as they so obviously had before. She would be doing the world a service by dispensing justice upon them… and they would do just fine as a snack.

Even with the lights off, Nicole could see the glow of their blood and hear it pumping through their veins from where they hid. And with the ease of a predator with centuries worth of practice, she had them subdued and dragged their limp bodies out through the door where kegs were brought in that led to a dark alley that ran between the saloon and the building next to it before Waverly could unlock the door.

Dragging them out of sight behind a dumpster, she sank her teeth in deep. There was no joy in it, no savouring of the taste as their blood filled their mouth. All there was within Nicole was a burning rage as she fed and weakened them, leaving them susceptible to the control of her mind. Not that she felt it would take much to control ones as morally corrupt and weak of mind as they were.

“Go. Hand yourselves over to the police. Confess all your crimes. Fail to do so and I will find you and rip out your throats.”

Her orders punched into their minds and became their greatest desire. As the other two staggered away, Nicole held onto the one called Champ with a punishing grip to his shoulder. He was a similar height to her, maybe an inch or two taller when he wasn’t curling up on pain. But, he was wider, heavily muscled in a gym rat kind of way. Objectively speaking he was handsome enough but his whole demeanour reeked of someone that cared more for themselves than anyone else.

“If you so much as look at Waverly again I rip off your dick and feed it to you. Do I make myself clear?” he nodded furiously and staggered as she shoved him away from her in the direction his friends had gone. “Go, catch up with your friends.” She watched from the darkness, straightening her clothing and checking for any missed blood as they staggered in the direction of the Police Department. With her bite marks healed and their minds addled by compulsion, they wouldn’t remember her or anything she had done. There would just be the overwhelming desire to do as she had ordered.

“Nicole?”

She stepped out from behind the dumpster and into the light of the streetlamp as Waverly rounded the corner from the main street and looked at her with a look in her eyes that was somewhere between concern and fear.

“There you are!”

“Yeah, just stepped out for some fresh air. All that whiskey hit me, I guess.” Her explanation was obviously implausible, how could she have gotten out through the bar unseen? But, instead of calling her on it, Waverly seemed all too ready to let it slide and held out her hand. Nicole took it meekly and felt something settle within her as Waverly’s fingers danced once more upon her pulse before linking with her fingers as she led the way back into the saloon.

Whiskey, alcohol in general, didn’t affect Nicole as it did normal human’s but she felt almost a little drunk as she waited at the bar as Waverly talked to her aunt and made sure it was okay for her to leave. She didn’t listen in to their conversation but she felt Gus’ eyes shooting holes in her as they talked animatedly before the older woman let out a deep sigh and threw up her hands in defeat.

“You just be careful.”

“I will. I know what I’m doing.”

“Is everything okay?” Nicole felt the need to ask as Waverly returned to her side with that delightful coy look returning to her eyes that caused Nicole’s heart to race as though she was the one being pursued. It was a novel sensation but not one that was unwelcome.

“Yep. Gus is just worried about the state of the road after that little bit of snow blew through.”

Little? Having worked her way through it for seven miles thanks to stupid Carl, Nicole wondered at the sanity of the people of Purgatory if they thought anything about the weather there was nothing to be worried about. But then, Nicole was new to it as she had somehow had the good sense until then to avoid Canada during its long winter months.

Maybe all that was needed was a good set of snow chains… not that Waverly’s red Jeep seemed to even have those, she realised as she climbed into it. And any hopes that Waverly was a cautious driver disappeared along with the lights of the small town as Waverly put her foot heavily onto the accelerator.

“Where are we going?” Nicole finally found her breath to ask as the Jeep whipped along empty roads with not a single building or sign of life around them.

“Don’t worry,” Waverly smirked slightly. “I’m not a serial killer or anything.”

“The thought never even crossed my mind… until you said that.” Her droll response seemed to only delight Waverly more and her laugh filled the Jeep and warmed parts of Nicole that had remained untouched for more years than she cared to remember.

Sitting back, comfortable with letting Waverly take her where she wanted, Nicole entertained herself by watching the snow lit scenery pass by beyond the wheels of the speeding vehicle and sneaking glances at the beautiful lines of Waverly’s face.

She truly was beautiful.

“Here we are!”

Nicole dragged her eyes away from perusing the strong, sharp line of Waverly’s jaw as the Jeep passed beneath the old lynch gate that guarded the entrance to the property. She shivered, a wave of something passing through her that stole her breath for a moment but before she could say or do anything, Waverly had pulled the Jeep to a juddering halt in the clearing between a rickety-looking barn and an almost as rickety but decidedly more homely looking single-story home and was climbing over her lap.

“Too much snow my side,” Waverly breathed out as a way of explanation for her position straddled across her.

Nicole felt frozen in place. Apart from her mouth that dropped open in shock as Waverly smirked down at her knowingly before climbing out of the Jeep over her with an enticing wiggle against her abdomen that was surely not necessary? She paused to tug the hem of her already short skirt where it had bunched up a little with her move and walked towards the house. Throwing a wink over her shoulder that was like a lightning bolt to Nicole’s senses.

She was well beyond the age where she should be getting giddy over anything or anyone, but Nicole felt exactly that as she scrambled to get her fingers working enough to free herself from the restraint of the seatbelt so she could follow the siren call of Waverly’s seductively swaying hips as she vanished into the house. Her heart beat a rapid tattoo against her ribs as it pumped blood that felt heavy with desire and as thick as sweet honey through her veins as she trudged and slipped through the ankle-deep snow that lay across the ground like a blanket of white leading her to the steps of the porch.

“Waverly?” Nicole came to a halt before the door, the realisation that she couldn’t step inside without an invitation only coming to her belatedly. She knew better! She should have gotten a more specific invitation before Waverly had gone inside!

“Come on in, Nicole.”

Like a lamb to the slaughter, Nicole stepped inside without thinking of anything other than getting closer to Waverly.

The smile slipped from Nicole’s face and her blood froze in her veins as she stepped through the doorway and was greeted not by Waverly’s seductive smile but instead by something sharp and obviously made of silver pressing into her back hard enough for her to feel it through the padding of her winter-weight jacket.

“Don’t move a muscle, shit-ticket!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN - Apparently having four stories on the go wasn't enough for my brain and it decided to throw Vampire Nicole at me as an idea. This _was_ supposed to be a short story for Halloween but... yeah, it looks like they might want to play and I can't always guarantee which story will get the most demanding.


	2. Chapter 2

Nicole tried to subtly lean away from the burn of the silver pressing through her clothing as the door closed with a creak of hinges and a fatalistic sounding thud of wood and grind of locks and bolts being drawn… many locks and bolts. But, apparently no novice to holding a knife to someone’s back, Waverly pressed it a little deeper in warning, making Nicole hold her position and grit her teeth at what she was sure was the audible sizzle of her flesh.

If the weapon in Waverly’s hand had been made with anything else, Nicole would have just laughed the threat of it off. While other metals hurt, hell, even paper hurt slicing through her skin as much as it did anyone else, Nicole could heal from any wound much faster than a normal human. Even the deepest cut from a blade could heal as fast as it was made. Even bones could knit back together within minutes and even a shot to the head or heart was nothing.

Unless there was silver involved as that forced her to heal at a more human rate.

Being a vampire made her hard to kill, it didn’t mean she _couldn’t_ be killed.

There were many ways she could die but the only one she was concerned by right then was in Waverly’s hands.

Silver.

Silver was the bane of a vampire’s existence and no one knew why for certain. It was whispered that it was because it was a pure metal but there were many pure metals that didn’t burn through her flesh, act like poison to her abilities… and give her away to mortal eyes.

Mirrors, ones created using silver refused to show a vampires reflection and to that day dining with the rich was painful and dangerous due to their fondness for silver cutlery. And, even the smallest traces of it within a weapon burnt and forced a vampire to heal as slowly and painfully as anyone else.

As long as the damage wasn’t to the head or heart, it was possible to heal but that didn’t mean that she relished the thought of risking a knife to her spine while disarming the girl with her ability to move at speed diminished.

“Waverly, what are you doing?” Nicole forced her voice to remain soft and unhurried, drawing Waverly’s name out with a hint of humour lightening her tone. “Just put the knife down and we can work this out, okay? Just put it down. You don’t want to do this.”

“Shut up! Stop trying to compel me with your voice!”

“Compel you?” Nicole frowned because she really hadn’t tried that and maybe she should have thought to. But also, it gave her the inkling of an idea. Waverly obviously knew what she was, or thought she did… but there was a nervous tremor in her voice that had her thinking that maybe it would be possible to convince her otherwise long enough to disarm her. “I don’t know what you mean, Waves. Why are you doing this? You invited me here… I thought you just liked me as much as I did you? If I got that wrong I’ll just leave.”

“I know what you are—”

“What— Waves, I’m no one, just a stranger that got off the bus and got caught in a storm.” The weapon waived against her back. “I’m going to turn around now, okay?” Raising her hands slowly from her sides, Nicole made herself seem small and unassuming to the shorter woman and willed herself not to rush as she slowly turned around.

“Jesus…” It wasn’t the tip of a knife that scraped across the fabric of her jacket as she turned and shifted to rest aligned with her heart but the silver-tipped bolt of a powerful looking crossbow held unwaveringly within Waverly’s hands.

Nicole swallowed down the rabbiting beat of her heart and tried to focus beyond the crossbow.

“Please, put that down, Waverly. There’s no need for anything like that—”

“Put it down so you can bite me and suck the blood out of me? I don’t think so,” she scoffed.

“Bite you? Why would I do something like that?” Nicole laughed dismissively.

“I’m not a child, Nicole! Stop treating me like one!”

“You’re right. I’m sorry,” Nicole uttered softly, forcing Waverly to still and focus beyond what was obviously a touchy subject to her judging by the anger in her voice. “I just don’t understand what you think I—” She stopped speaking as Waverly snorted, cocked an eyebrow and a hip in an adorable and alluring move. She followed the direction of Waverly’s pointed look down to the end of the crossbow as Waverly deliberately pressed the bolt through the fabric of her top to release a curl of smoke as the silver touched her flesh.

“What I think, Nicole Rayleigh Haught—”

Nicole’s eyes widened in shock and trepidation at the use of her full name and the knowledge that somehow, this girl knew her.

“What I knew long before you made it to Purgatory, is that _you_ are a vampire.”

Nicole dropped the pretence, such as it was. Really, it was hard to deny not being human when you were literally burning. Waverly’s eyes widened slightly and she swallowed almost nervously as she straightened up to her full height and grew so still her breathing came as close as it could to stopping.

There was a myth that vampires didn’t breathe and that their hearts didn’t beat. That was a lie. If they didn’t breathe they would be incapable of speaking and if their hearts didn’t pump blood everything would just atrophy. What they _could_ do, was regulate it down to where hours could pass between each heartbeat and every breath if needed, and they could reach a level of stillness that a statue would envy.

Nicole knew what it looked like when she did it as she had seen other vampires do the same more effectively. It was the same shift that happened when a big cat went from sleeping to hunting and you were suddenly very aware that you were looking at something that could eat you alive. Compared to some vampires though, Nicole had been told by her sire, Shae, that she looked more akin to a ginger kitten than a tiger when she did it.

It worked on Waverly though, to an extent. Not enough to make her drop the crossbow and run. But also, thankfully, not enough to make her finger tighten on the trigger even when her fangs grew enough to glint in the light as she spoke.

“If you _know_ that, why did you invite me into your home? If you have some dream about me turning you, you could have just asked. Wouldn’t have worked as I don’t do that, but it would certainly be a better approach than this, Waverly—”

“Earp.”

“What?” Nicole’s whole body stiffened at the surname of the only family of vampire hunters more successful, if not as widely known, as the Van Helsing’s. The notoriety of the Van Helsings’ came only because they liked to shout about their exploits to anyone whether they wanted to listen to them more not, while the Earps’ just efficiently got the job done.

That job being killing people like her.

“Waverly Earp. That’s my name. And what I need, what I _want_,” she amended with a tremble to her voice, “is your help, Nicole.”

“You—” Nicole snorted out an inelegant scoffing sound in disbelief at the absurdity of what was happening. “You want _my_ help? Oh, this is rich. I’m leaving—” The press of the crossbow and the renewed flare of determination in Waverly’s damnably pretty eyes said otherwise. “I don’t trust you any more than you trust me, Earp. You’re asking for help while holding a weapon on me? If I say I’ll help with whatever scheme you’ve got going on—”

“My sister is missing.”

“Oh, so you want me to help you find another vampire murderer? This day just keeps getting better!” Nicole threw her arms up slightly, wary even then of startling Waverly into firing even as she scoffed at the absurdity of the situation she had found herself in.

She really should have stayed on the damned bus!

Growling slightly through gritted teeth, she leaned in an inch or so, just enough to have Waverly’s fingers tightening on the crossbow in warning. “Say I help you find her,” she asked quietly, “then what?”

“Then you can leave.”

“You’ll let me leave,” Nicole scoffed lightly. “I’m supposed to believe _that_? _This_ isn’t instilling much trust.” Nicole looked down pointedly at the crossbow and leaned into it, gritting her teeth against the pain as she did so as her flesh and blood sizzled and burned against it. “There is nothing going on right now that says I’ll be _safe_ at the end of it any more than you believe you’ll be safe from me without that in your hands.”

Nicole frowned as she realised Waverly was paying more attention to getting something out of her pocket than listening to her.

“What are you doing?” Tilting her head, Nicole stared at the red ribbon as it snaked and coiled in between Waverly’s slender fingers as she held out her hand. The memory of how her fingers felt tracing patterns across her flesh made her wrists ache as though she could feel them.

“Take my left hand with yours and bind us together with the ribbon.”

Nicole shook her head in an attempt to clear it as Waverly’s voice dipped an octave. The voice in the back of her mind, the one that she really should have paid more attention to earlier, was back, jumping up and down screaming at her in warning. But, once more, Nicole paid it no mind as she took the ribbon from Waverly.

The light glinted off it, catching her eye as it hung between their fingers.

It felt like a perfectly normal piece of ribbon but there was a strange weight to the moment that had Nicole feeling like she was wading through molasses as she placed her left hand within Waverly’s. Her fingers instantly started their restless movements over her pulse, their motion soft and alluring, lulling her. Even though she knew it was probably the worst decision ever, Nicole looped the strip of fabric around their wrists her motion unconsciously following the rhythm set by Waverly’s touch.

Nicole had thought that the patterns Waverly’s fingers had traced upon her skin were just random movements, but as they moved again, she realised they were the repeating the same shape, one that she could almost see forming behind her eyes. She tried to pull away as it took shape and she saw it for the spell it was but it was too little, too late.

“Witch?”

The word left her mouth on a strangled breath as the ribbon suddenly tightened and constricted around her wrist. Nicole tried to brush it away but her body was moving sluggishly, her hand barely lifting from her side as she swayed and sagged within the restraining grip of Waverly’s hand. Waverly’s lips moved, silently forming words that Nicole knew belonged to some kind of spell but she was powerless to stop her as the tightening ribbon cut into her flesh and sank into her bones, joining them together along the line of their hearts.

Waverly’s pulse rang through her, forcing her heart to keep up with the pace of it.

Her back bowing sharply, Nicole cried out to heavens, to the god she had long since lost faith in, for mercy as her body toppled towards the hard wooden floor. She swept her free arm up, pushing the crossbow away from her heart more by luck than judgement. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard the solid thud of the silver-tipped bolt hitting the wall behind even through the roaring sounds in her head as she yanked Waverly down with her and startled her into squeezing the trigger.

The world came back to Nicole slowly. The heavy beating in her chest slowed back to something like normal as a pair of hazel eyes swam into focus above her. “What—? What did you do?” Her voice strengthened with each word but still barely rose above a whisper even though she wanted to scream and rile against whatever she had done to her and push aside the comforting weight of her hand where it lay against her shoulder.

“Let me help—”

“What. Did. You. Do?” she tried again, injecting every ounce of steel she could muster into her voice as she tried and failed to sit up without Waverly’s help.

“Shoot! I didn’t think it would hit that hard.”

“Stop that!” Nicole shrugged away from the fingers tracing those cursed symbols across the nape of her neck even if she craved the feel of Waverly’s fingers and the soothing sensation the spread through her body. “What is it you didn’t think would hit hard, Waverly? What did you do to me?” she demanded as she finally made it back to her feet.

“You’re right,” Waverly admitted, drawing herself up to her full height even though it fell woefully short of the taller vampires. She felt small but unafraid as she stood before her. “I was kind of worried that you would hurt me so I cast a spell to stop that. Now I have no need to hold a weapon on you so maybe you’ll trust me and help me find Wynonna.”

“You—” huffing in exasperation, Nicole kicked Waverly’s crossbow to the other side of the room out of her reach and sped through the bolts on the door while Waverly was scrambling after it. A fluffy of snow blew into the room as she threw open the door and stormed outside, leaving the wind to carry her “goodbye” to Waverly’s ears.

She got no more than ten foot through the veritable blizzard that had dumped several more inches onto the land before she felt a warning tug around her left wrist that felt like fingers grabbing her that had her turning, expecting to find Waverly holding on to her. But, through the open doorway, Nicole saw Waverly standing in the middle of the room with a fierce look of determination on her face that Nicole ignored in favour of getting away as quickly as possible.

Like a dog reaching the end of its chain, Nicole came to a sudden, startling halt, her left arm pulling her sharply to a stop and twisting her around. She barely had time to register the strange sensation before she was flying through the air back towards the house. Her shoulder cracked sharply into the doorframe, splintering off a sizable chunk that, adding insult to injury, somehow managed to hit her square in the forehead as she landed on her back at Waverly’s feet.

“I also bound us together.”

“I kind of got that,” Nicole grunted out as she crossed her arms and glowered up at Waverly with narrowed eyes as the witch crouched down behind her head and offered her a smile that had looked much more alluring and friendly back at the saloon before she had revealed her true nature. “Can’t believe I fell for a pretty face.”

“You think I’m pretty?” Waverly grinned.

“Not anymore.”

“Come on, we need to work on a plan for finding Wynonna.”

Waverly stuck out a hand that Nicole ignored in favour of crossing her ankles and arms more securely, and pouting up at the ceiling.

“Why do you need my help anyway?” Nicole asked after a moment, curious despite herself.

“My sister is the heir to the Earp vampire hunting legacy. I’m just a bartender that knows a few simple spells.”

Nicole snorted. “Waverly, I do not for one second believe that you are _just_ anything.”

“Aww, I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me.”

“I didn’t mean that in a good way!” And yet, she had and she regretted denying it the moment Waverly’s face fell a little. Damn it! She had been conned by a pretty witch into following her into a trap and gotten herself bound to boot… she should not be feeling sorry for her!

“Why do you need my help?” she sighed as Waverly perked up a little at her question.

“Because I need someone stronger than the vampires that took her and from my research, I know you’re the right vampire to help me.”

“Research?” tilting back her head, Nicole looked at Waverly intently. Even from her upside-down viewpoint, the blush on Waverly’s face was clear to see. “Waverly Earp, have you been stalking me?” she teased.

“No! Don’t be ridiculous!” Waverly snorted and blustered.

“Stalker! So, what did you find?” Nicole saw the light ignite within Waverly’s eyes that screamed that she wanted to show her everything she had found out until she remembered that she had been denying all stalking activities.

Climbing to her feet, Nicole brushed her dishevelled clothes free of melting snow and bits of the doorframe. “Listen, Waverly, if your sister has been taken by vampires long enough for it to worry you enough to come up with _this_,” she waved her left hand around for emphasis, “as a scheme, she is already more than likely dead.”

“It was Bulshar.”

Nicole, hands curled into fists at the name. “Then she is most definitely dead,” she growled out past a tightly clenched jaw.

“I know what he did to your sire—”

“You know nothing little girl!” Nicole barked out, rounding on her furiously. The suddenness of her move, the fury on her face should have had the witch running for cover, spell or not, but Waverly stood there, stealing her fury with her calmness and the promise of understanding in her eyes.

“I know that her death should have killed you too, Nicole! With all my research, I have never heard of a vampire surviving the destruction of their sire how you did. Is that why you won’t turn anyone?”

“Drop it, Waverly,” Nicole sighed brokenly at her far too accurate deduction. “If you go against Bulshar you will die, Waverly.” Nicole looked down at the hand grasping her forearm and followed it to Waverly’s eyes and the desperation writ within them. Sighing, she reached out and gently cupped her face. “You don’t stand a chance and I really don’t want to see you die. Please, give up and move on before it’s too late.”

“If you help I’ll have more than a chance. You’re a survivor, Nicole. You’re _the_ survivor. The only vampire that has withstood Bulshar. I need that. I need you. My sister needs you. Please.”

“I can’t. Release me from your spell. Waverly. Let me leave. I swear I won’t hurt you.”

“There is no breaking the spell.”

“Waverly—”

“It wears off in its own time.”

“In its own time? How long, Waverly?”

“The spell book said one cycle. Which could mean one day. Or it could be a month or a year—” It could also, in theory, mean a lifetime but Waverly wisely stopped at a year before Nicole exploded in rage. “So, I guess you’ll be sticking around a while longer. Long enough for me to change your mind.”

With every potential lengthening of her confinement, Nicole glared a little harder but it didn’t’ stop Waverly from bouncing up and down on her toes and giving her an impish grin that Nicole found herself powerless against.

“A year?”

“Could be.”

“Hmm. Then I hope you don’t mind supplying me with fresh blood when I need it.”

“What?” Waverly froze mid bounce and sank back down with a audible thud.

“Not animal blood either. That is about as much use to me as a human drinking seawater. It has to be human. Has to be fresh,” she purred out while eyeing Waverly up and down like she was her next meal.

“I— I know someone at the hospital that should be able to get some bags.”

“All that plastic is bad for the environment, Waverly,” Nicole tutted. “Fresh is just so much more environmentally friendly.” Smirking softly, Nicole ran the tip of a finger along the curve of Waverly’s throat, eliciting a shiver from her.

“You’re teasing me!”

“Maybe a little,” Nicole grinned as Waverly batted her hand away. “I ate well earlier so you have a couple of days before needing to worry about if your sensibilities will allow you to break the law and steal from the hospital or if you will let me hunt. Or… you could donate.”

Nicole edged closer as Waverly’s hazel eyes widened and her breathing grew more erratic. “I can’t deny I was looking forward to maybe having a taste if our night had ended how you fooled me into believing it would. I would have been _so_ gentle as I pierced your flesh and tasted you, you would have come from it,” she whispered darkly against the shell of her ear.

“Now,” she stepped back, startling Waverly as she raised her voice and clapped her hands together. “As delightful as this is, I grow weary. Am I to sleep here or shall I head back into town?”

“Well, I’m not too sure how far this would let you go,” Waverly wafted her left hand around enough to tug Nicole’s after it. “But I really wasn’t lying about the state of the motels so you’ll stay here with me.”

“Then just point me toward a bed my sweet captor.”

**********

Nicole could feel the tug of the encroaching dawn as Waverly led her up the narrow stairs to the rooms that lay beneath the sloped roof of the house.

Another misconception about her kind was that they needed to sleep in a casket, laid in dirt from their own graves. Moreover, when the dawn came, they became corpses again. It was all false. Thankfully. Lugging a casket and dirt around would be tiresome and while she didn’t exactly sprawl in her sleep, Nicole had no desire to sleep in the narrow confinement of a coffin. As for the dying… that was a rumour perpetrated by their ability to slow their breathing.

The full sun sapped them of their energy and burned them faster than it would a human. Which sucked doubly for Nicole as with her fair complexion and red hair, she had burned faster than most people even before she had been turned into a vampire.

The dawn, while safer to move around in without looking like a lobster, was harder in its own way as that was the moment when she felt the most drained. It was sudden and startling the way her body went from operating at a hundred per cent to ‘curl up in a ball, I’ve had enough’ in a matter of seconds.

Nicole looked around the room Waverly had led her too. It was pretty in a pastel coloured, bohemian kind of way. None of the items of furniture there matched and yet they all seemed to work together to create a peaceful space with its diaphanous curtains and enough blankets and pillows piled up on the bed to survive winter without the heating on. The bed was big enough but it wasn’t _big_ and Nicole couldn’t help but notice, her eyes bugging out as she slender fingers started lifting the edge of her top, that Waverly seemed to be getting ready for bed.

“There’s only one bed?” Nicole pointed out somewhat unnecessarily given the fabric covered evidence that dominated the room, her voice rising sharply almost to a squeak.

“Erm,” Waverly blushed and stuttered nervously as she looked between Nicole and the bed. “Wynonna would pitch a fit if even _I_ used her bed. And I want to keep you close,” she finished almost on a whisper.

“Not like I can go anywhere,” she gave a mocking shake of her hand that had the blush on Waverly’s face fading and her eyes glinting as they narrowed. “But that’s fine. I’ve slept in worse places,” Nicole shrugged as she moved an armchair from its place by the window at the foot of the bed and put it as far from the bed as she could without putting it out in the hallway.

Waverly made some kind of a noise that almost sounded like disappointment but Nicole figured must have just been her imagination as the girl grabbed up some clothing and brushed past her on the way to the door.

“I’m going to shower first… don’t— don’t try to leave, Nicole. Please?”

“I’ll be here,” Nicole assured her. She cursed her foolish heart as it tripped over itself as Waverly gave her a smile of gratitude that lingered as a warm afterimage on her mind and in her jaded heart long after she skipped out of the door.

She was a fool. Six-hundred years and she was letting a pretty girl’s smile get to her. Waverly was so much more than pretty though, Nicole felt it in her foolish heart… and her shoulder, head and ass from where they had gotten banged up thanks to Waverly’s guile and abilities as a witch. Huffing at herself, Nicole looked around the bedroom and tried not to listen to the sounds of Waverly showering that reached her ears.

If their night had gone how she had thought, they could have been showering together. Her hands and body could have been exploring and discovering every glorious inch of what Waverly’s clothing had kept hidden. And while sex in a shower or bath were not as sexy in reality as they sounded; even with the right lube and her strength, slipping on tiles was still a danger, it was great as a means of foreplay or just for a chance to care and connect with a partner.

“Partner?” Nicole snorted at the absurdity of her thoughts and started meticulously poking and prodding around the bedroom in an effort to find out anything she could. She felt guilty for prying but… “Grow some ovaries, Haught. She tricked you for her own end. She stalked— Holy shit!”

Nicole stepped back. Pulling the sheet she had been peeking behind, she peeled it aside to reveal a wall covered from floor to ceiling in her life. It was all there! Or the important bits that had been plucked from six-hundred years were anyway. “Jesus! I was kidding about the stalking but this is some creepy scrapbooking skills!” Nicole followed the trail of photographs, clippings from books and newspapers and hastily scrawled notes. “Hmm, I forgot about that! Nope, that one wasn’t me!” Plucking a newspaper article off the wall, she screwed it into a ball and tossed it over her shoulder. Her fingers froze over a photograph of a painting or herself and Shae that had her heart aching under the wash of memories it evoked.

Her body stiffened at the rustle of fabric and disturbance in the air behind her.

“I’m sorry you lost her.”

“Lost? Yeah, right,” Nicole snorted angrily. She wondered if Waverly’s research had revealed to her what Bulshar had done to Shae? If she knew that the monster she was determined to face for the life of her sister, had ordered his pet witch, Constance Clootie, to raise zombies to tear the woman she loved apart before granting her the _mercy_ of death?

“It was a long time ago.” Releasing a sigh, Nicole dropped her hand back to her side and turned her back on the sometimes damning scraps of her life collected and spread out for her to see, to face Waverly. There was that shyness around her again that warred with the eager fire in her eyes as she looked between her and her evidence. She wanted to ask questions and pick her apart, Nicole could see it… but she was too tired to face her past misdeeds.

“I need to get my backpack from your Jeep if you can refrain from pulling me off my feet again. And I hope you left some hot water.” Nicole brushed briskly past her. She could feel the damp heat from the shower radiating off Waverly’s body and smell the beguiling, clean scent of her body now she was free of the scents that had clung to her from the saloon.

The snow was still falling. Curtains of huge flakes that were so blinding in their intensity that Nicole could barely make out the hulking shape of Waverly’s bright red Jeep or the barn beyond.

“I should have stayed on the bus,” she griped to herself as she trudged through the knee-high drifts. “Hell, I should have just stayed in Vegas.” Now there was a place that was made for her kind with its transient population of tourists that partied hard and stayed up all night. But no, something had drawn her into heading north right into Waverly’s grasp. “Drawn by a natural desire to seek out a new place to roam or bespelled?” If Waverly had somehow managed to draw her there, there was a hell of a lot of power in that tiny, perfect, sexy as hell body.

Bag in hand, Nicole turned back to the house and saw the shadowy outline of Waverly watching her from the window tucked in under the eaves. She was tempted to give her a wave or something but she had no real desire to goad the witch into yanking her off her feet again.

Stomping the snow off her boots and jeans, Nicole shut the door behind her as best as she could with the damage done to it. It had been painful enough when they were on the same level of the house, getting yanked through the air or through the walls, ceiling, or whatever else was in the way was best avoided until she could work out how to protect herself.

Nicole was in no hurry to return to the bedroom but the heat and scent of Waverly that lingered in the still steamy shower was a torture in itself that had her rushing her shower. Waverly let out a barely audible gasp as she entered the dimly lit bedroom, her eyes falling to the long line of her legs where they were left on display by her, admittedly, pretty short, shorts.

“You— erm, you’re really going to sleep all the way over there?”

“You would rather we shared the bed?” Nicole gave her a pointed look, arching her brow as Waverly pulled the covers up around her neck like a blushing maiden. It would probably not be wise to tease her about how many blushing maidens she had tempted out of their bedclothes… it was tempting though.

“No. No! I just. You’re a long way, away.”

“The room is not _that_ big, Waverly.”

Nicole could sleep just about anywhere without the fear of pain but even her back ached as she looked at the too-small armchair. It proved to be reasonably comfortable though as she pulled her legs up and curled into it. She could feel Waverly’s eyes upon her still even after she had turned out the light but she was too tired to care.

Her eyes drifted shut. Her breathing and pulse slowing and evening out as the sun edged towards the horizon.

She heard the slither of covers as Waverly shifted and turned in her bed… and then suddenly, Nicole was jolted awake as her ass and back hit the floor with a resounding thud that echoed through her body.

“What the—?!” Nicole blinked, following the damning line of her outstretched arm that pointed back to her tormentor. Her tormentor whose shoulders were shaking up and down in silent humour even if she refused to turn to find out what the commotion was about. “Rude!”

Nicole made her way back towards the chair and caught the motion of Waverly’s hand out of the corner of her eyes. It was as though she was twisting her hand around a rope or chain… or the now invisible ribbon that lay between them and as she did so, Nicole felt the tug of it starting to tighten around her wrist.

Sighing, Nicole moved the chair further into the room to where Waverly could see her, hoping it would placate her tormentor but no sooner had she settled down when she was yanked out of it again as Waverly turned once more and presented her with her back.

Twice more, Nicole moved the chair around the bed, placing it directly in the line of Waverly’s sight only to find herself on sprawled in an undignified heap on the floor.

Gritting her teeth, Nicole glared up at the ceiling. “Fine.” Tossing back the bedcovers, she slid into the bed and placed her head on the pillow beside Waverly.

“What are you doing?” Waverly’s eyes flew open.

“Saving us some time. Now if you yank me around I will land on top of you. Was that your intention all along, Waverly?” she queried as Waverly’s eyes widened in the dimness of the room. “If so, you could have just asked. I’m not averse to sharing the bed of a beautiful woman and while you are a treacherous little witch, you are extraordinarily beautiful.”

“Extraordinarily beautiful, huh?”

Nicole blushed at the way her tired mind had betrayed her and loosened her lips but she didn’t take it back. She didn’t want to turn the truth into a lie.

“Go to sleep, Waverly. Just make sure you wake before I do though. Sometimes I like to have breakfast in bed.”

Nicole heard Waverly gasp and fidget beside her and then little else as her body started to succumb to the rising of the sun and shut down. She felt sure she was dreaming as she drifted away, sucked under by the strange events of the day she saw hazel eyes twinkling at her full of laughter and dawning desire as fingers cupped and traced along her jaw and cheek, and soft lips pressed a lingering kiss to the corner of her mouth.

“I know you don’t want to be but, I’m glad you’re here, Nicole.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 


	3. Chapter 3

Warmth surrounded Nicole tugging and lulling her back towards sleep even as she drifted slowly, peacefully, reluctantly towards a state of wakefulness. Her brow creased in confusion as she felt a hand move beneath her own where it was pressed over her heart. Their fingers slid and twined together like pieces of a puzzle coming together. The feeling of rightfulness that came with it tugged Nicole a little further away from sleep as she tried to make sense of everything around her but there was still no sense of urgency or danger even when she felt the body of a stranger moving closer behind her.

She knew it had to be a stranger as it had been more years than she cared to think about since she had felt comfortable sharing what was a time of great vulnerability with anyone of her own kind or with a normal human.

A murmur and a warm, soft breath fell between her shoulder blades, sending a shiver of electricity up and down her spine that was outpaced by the burst of heat that had her biting back an unexpected moan as a, thankfully, feminine leg slid between hers and a toned thigh pressed up between hers.

Nicole was tempted to stay still and see where this suddenly interesting development would lead but there was still the burning question as to what the hell was going on. Moving slowly, she lifted her head and glanced back as well as she could until she could make out the features hidden beneath the riotous tangle of soft brunette curls obscuring the face lying on the pillow behind her.

“Oh yeah, that happened,” she whispered quietly in disbelief that she had somehow managed even for a moment to forget someone like Waverly or that she had, through annoyingly sneaky means on the part of the witch, found herself bound to her.

Nicole focused on that as she worked towards extraditing herself from Waverly’s determined grasp. There were many forms of bonding as far as she was aware. Some more dangerous than others. And, she wondered which one Waverly had used? That it was powerful there was no doubt in Nicole’s mind. A witch that could lure her over such a great distance, one that had been stalking her before then to boot, was probably incapable of doing anything that wasn’t powerful even if she looked like nothing less than an angel when asleep.

If sleeping angels huffed and snorted when they had lost their grip on their reluctant vampire sleeping partners that was. Sliding the pillow she had used into Waverly’s range, Nicole couldn’t help but smile as Waverly latched onto it and wrapped it up in such a tight grip it was a miracle the pillow didn’t explode into a shower of stuffing under the pressure of her surprisingly toned arms. The lines of distress that had marred Waverly’s brow from her sleep being disturbed melted away leaving her looking far too young and innocent given where her leg had been pressing minutes before.

Huffing out a sigh, Nicole gathered up her clothing and made her way to the bathroom. The air in the house beyond the confines of the bedroom was chilly enough to leave her breath visible in the air. It wasn’t enough to bother her, little was, but Waverly, despite the skimpiness of her clothing, seemed to prefer the heat if her night-time clinging and the volume of blankets upon the bed and stacked up on the couch was anything to go by. So, once she was dressed, Nicole quietly made her way down the stairs and got a fire blazing in the burner.

“Getting soft, Haught. You should be opening all the doors and windows and freezing the little witch out, not keeping her warm.” She couldn’t do it though, not even that petty form of revenge. What Waverly had done was stupid but it was more of her risk to herself than anything and it had been done because she was scared and desperate enough to reach out to her family’s sworn enemy, all to help her sister.

_“You always did have a soft heart, Nicole.”_

Nicole sighed at the whisper of Shae’s memory in her mind.

_“Even when I tried to lead you down the path I’d been dragged down by my sire, it was you that pulled me back and taught me love and compassion.”_

“And I got you killed because of it.” Nicole was left with the echo of her own thoughts as Shae’s ghost remained stubbornly silent when it came to words of comfort. Not that there could be any answer except for in her darkest nightmares when the ghosts of everyone she had failed to save clawed at her and called her the monster she was.

Tilting her head, Nicole listened for any movement from the bedroom above but it was the faintest of sounds from outside that caught her ear. Opening the front door, she looked out, her jaw clenching at the sight of all the glistening, white snow that greeted her.

Miraculously, the porch was clear apart from a light skittering that had blown across the old boards but the rest of the land had not gotten off so lightly.

Snow glistened and glinted under the weak, evening sun, revealing a rolling blanket that stretched as far as the eye could see and bent the tops of even the sturdiest of pine trees. There was a hump lying between the house and the barn that Nicole knew was Waverly’s Jeep only because she knew that was where Waverly had parked it. Any hopes that it was all due to drifting was squashed by the sight of the Earp mailbox barely managing to break the surface like a sad and lonely beacon of hope in a sea of white on the edge of the property.

They were well and truly snowed in.

Before Nicole could take in all the implications and complexities that brought up, she caught the sound again, weak and plaintive, drifting weakly towards her from the barn.

Without further thought, she stepped out into the snow, feeling it soaking through her pants and down into her boots within seconds as the first step off the porch put it above her knees. She ploughed on determinedly, righting herself as her boots slipped on the ice beneath the snow and only stopping when she felt a tug to her left wrist that was light, almost questioning rather than panicked or done in anger.

Nicole looked back over her shoulder and up, her eyes easily finding Waverly at the open bedroom window with a look in her eyes that appeared almost desperate as she leaned out.

“Go back inside, Waverly. Stay warm. I just heard a noise in the barn.”

She heard the window sliding shut, the bottom of it dragging through the crisp layer of snow and ice blown up against it, as she turned back and continued forging a path towards the barn but she could feel Waverly’s eyes on her with every step. Thankfully, she didn’t tug on the tie between them though… being nearly crotch deep in the snow was more than enough and Nicole had no desire to end up on her ass making snow angels.

Despite the wind outside been light, it was somehow amplified in the barn as it whistled through every gap between the boards. And as far as Nicole could tell, the barn was made up more of gaps than boards. It made Nicole’s bones ache to be in there as she looked around the walls and took in the implements of torture hanging there gently swaying on their hooks as they were caught on a breeze. Not even the fact that they were old, many rusted beyond use, eased her as she could see the trails of blood upon them even if it was so old that it no longer held the scent of anything.

Nicole wondered for a moment, just a moment, as she balanced the wicked point of a machete on the tip of her finger before letting it swing back into place against the wall if Waverly knew about what had happened here? If she knew the blood that must have soaked into the earthen floor over the years, and that was why she had been tugging on the bond between them? When she returned to the house, would it be to greeted with a blade or a bolt from the crossbow pressed against her again?

Before the tendrils of her thoughts could take root and fester within her mind, they were dismissed. If Waverly knew, she could have simply stopped her from going near the barn with a tug when she had the chance. And, curse her foolish heart, Nicole didn’t want to believe that the woman that had been holding her close all night could be a part of anything that had gone on within the flimsy walls of the barn.

Silently apologising to the spider whose hard work she brushed aside, Nicole moved deeper into the dust-filled air. There were several stables and tethering points along one side but, if the barn had ever housed animals, there was no longer any trace of them beyond the hoof-shaped grooves still lingering upon the hard-packed dirt that made up the floor of the stalls. In fact, the only beast stabled there now was a Harley Davidson, its black paintwork and chrome engine marred by a heavy layer of dust despite the tarpaulin covering it.

Nicole wasn’t one to judge, maybe when the weather allowed Waverly liked to get all decked out in leather and go for a spin but, as tempting a vision as that was, she had the feeling it wasn’t really her style… though, she was going to hold onto the thought just a little while longer.

Nicole’s fingers dropped from the handlebars as the sound came once more. It was from above her head in an area that must once have been used as a hayloft. Peering through the dust, she found only the faintest beats of a heart and barely even a shadow of movement of blood moving through a tiny body.

Treading carefully, quietly, she made her way up the rungs of the old wooden ladder that creaked and groaned in protest but held until the last rung that splintered and crumbled to dust in her hand. Adjusting her grip and weight, she pulled herself up the rest of her way up and made her way over to the tiny figure lying on the dusty beams and slats of wood.

“Oh, you poor thing.”

The tiny ginger kitten let out a silent hiss and swatted at her fingers weakly but the move took the rest of its energy and it lay there, its thin chest barely moving as Nicole gently picked it up and tucked it inside her jacket in the warmth next to her heart.

Waverly seemed to be wearing a groove in the kitchen floor as Nicole re-entered the house if her restless pacing back and forth across the doorway while wringing her hands and muttering under her breath, was anything to go by.

“Hi honey, we’re home.”

“There you— Wait. We?”

Unzipping her jacket, Nicole carefully peeled the fabric aside so Waverly could see the tiny ginger bundle and stop looking around her for hordes of vampires if her nervous expression was anything to go by.

“I found this little one all alone out in the barn. Not sure if she’s going to make it,” she frowned sadly, “but I thought she deserved a chance rather than just freezing out in the cold.”

Waverly’s fingers trembled as they edged closer and gently stroked over the matted, ginger fur of the kitten curled against her and teased a purr from the tiny thing.

“Hold on!”

As a vampire, Nicole had a turn of speed that could make her look nothing more than a blur to most humans. Apparently, witches were faster as, in the blink of an eye, Waverly was gone from right before Nicole’s eyes leaving behind the impression of a determined glint in her hazel eyes. She was soon back carrying a box and a mound of warm towels in one hand while she furiously googled something on her phone with the other. Before Nicole could ask any questions she was being bustled out of the kitchen with orders to warm herself and the kitten near the wood burner as Waverly pulled packets and cans out of cupboards and got busy preparing something ‘nutritious and kitten safe’.

“So, she’s not your kitten then?”

“There’s been nothing bigger than a hamster or goldfish allowed at the homestead in years and when I lived in town I was too busy to give even a plant the attention it deserved.”

“You lived in town? Then why come back out here?” Nicole looked around the mismatched but comfortable furniture to the worn walls hidden by carefully placed pictures and drapes of fabric. It really wasn’t a good time of year to judge the land, she knew that, but the homestead as Waverly called it and the land around it, held an air of abandonment and neglect that was ingrained into everything.

There was a soft sigh from the kitchen and she heard the sound of whatever Waverly was holding being placed aside and her soft steps before she walked into the living room and sat beside her. She seemed to gather herself for a minute or two, her fingers gently stroking the kitten as she did so.

“I— we didn’t have it easy out here, Nicole. When I was little my papa was only concerned with drinking and training Willa to follow in his footsteps. Willa was the eldest. She was next in line to take over as… well, you know what the Earps do. Mama hated him for it, called it a curse while he called it a calling from God. I think maybe she grew sick of it all and left when I was three. A couple of years later the homestead was attacked and papa and Willa were killed.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Wynonna and I were taken in by our aunt and uncle. It was okay with them but I had it easier because I was younger. Wynonna, she suffered, fell into bad habits and got shunted around the system when Gus and Curtis realised they couldn’t help her. Finally, she left Purgatory. Left me. Until she came back just this year and convinced me we should live out here together again.”

“And now she’s gone missing?”

“And now she’s gone missing,” Waverly’s sigh was sad and heartfelt.

“Waverly. Are you sure your sister hasn’t simply skipped out again?” Nicole held up her hands in a placating gesture as Waverly rounded on her with sad and angry eyes. “I’m only suggesting it because if you go against Bulshar, there is no turning back. You need to be sure before you go down that path.”

“Wynonna wouldn’t do that to me! Not again. She got some kind of a lead on Bulshar’s location. She went to check it out and… never came back.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Not too long.”

“Waverly,” Nicole demanded the truth softly. For Waverly to have grown worried enough. For her to have had enough time to formulate a plan to draw her all the way from Las Vegas… that was not something done on the spur of the moment and she told her so.

“It’s been a week, okay. Wynonna went out a week ago.”

“But, I decided to move before then. And that ‘research’ must have taken more than a week—”

“Erm, I maybe, kinda, wanted to meet you even before Wynonna went missing,” Waverly admitted shyly, casting a glance at Nicole from beneath lowered lashes. “And it’s not exactly like you have social media.”

“You didn’t find my Instagram account then?”

“You have Instagram? _You?_”

“I’m an ancient vampire, not elderly. I didn’t get to survive all these years without learning to adapt with the times.”

“What was your favourite era? Favourite places to visit? Oh, have you met anyone famous? How many languages do you know? I have _so_ many questions!”

“Right now, my inquisitive captor, you have a kitten to nurse back to health.”

“Shoot! Sorry, Calamity!”

“Calamity?”

“Yep,” she popped the ‘P’ as she vanished back into the kitchen. “Calamity Jane. Just seems to suit her, don’t you think?”

Nicole gazed down at the kitten who was still feistily swinging a paw at her finger when it strayed too close. “Calamity Jane. Yes, that suits her just fine. Martha would approve,” she whispered to the kitten.

“Wait! Martha? You knew Martha Jane Cannary… Calamity Jane herself?”

“The kitten, Waverly.” Nicole chuckled as both Waverly and the kitten seemed to give her matching, adorable, pouting glares. “How long will it take for the roads to be cleared?”

“Unfortunately, they are more likely to clear the Mayor’s road and the one to his ‘club’ before they do the ones to the hospital or the schools or even think to remember that someone even lives all the way out here. There’s plenty of food in the cupboards though.”

“Food for you, Waverly. Food for you,” Nicole gently reminded her.

“But…”

Waverly appeared in the doorway again, a puzzled frown on her face.

“Vampires can eat food. I’ve seen it. You ate and drank at the bar.”

“We can consume food and drink, yes. But, we do it to blend in and also for the pleasure in tasting what was lost to us when we’re turned,” she explained gently. “I could eat every bit of food on the planet and it wouldn’t give me the amount of nutrition contained in even one drop of human blood.”

“Oh! Erm, how long before you need to feed?”

“You mean how long before I get so hungry I’ll want to rip out your pretty throat?”

“Y-yeah. If you must put it that way. How long until you want to… rip out my throat?” she swallowed nervously, determinedly ignoring the lingering look Nicole was giving her throat.

“I would never _want_ to do that. But,” she interrupted Waverly’s grateful sigh, “I would reluctantly consider sinking my teeth into you in about three days time.”

“Oh…”

Her voice was small, her eyes nervous as her brow furrowed.

“I’m not going to lie to you and pretty it up, Waverly. If you don’t want me to feed off you, I need to be out of here by then. You need to let me go, Waverly.”

“The bond won’t let you hurt me. And you’re not eating our cat!”

“Waverly, you have stalked me… surely you know that’s not the kind of pussy I like to eat.” Nicole chuckled as Waverly flushed a bright red that rivalled the colour of her hair. “Anyway, who said that biting you would hurt? I feed where I am wanted or off those who intend harm just as I did yesterday.”

“Wait… just who did you feed off?” she asked cautiously.

“Three boy-men who were planning on raping you. They claimed they had others before. One was called, now what was it, Chump?”

“Champ! Champ Hardy!?” Waverly shouted in horror. “That no good—! Just ‘cause I caught his lying ass cheating on me again! Did you kill them?”

“If I had caught them at it, I would have. Instead, I fed and compelled them to go confess all their crimes to the police.”

“You saved me?”

“Mhm. And then you seduced me into your vehicle, brought me here, poked me with a crossbow and bound us together.”

“If you’re trying to make me feel guilty, it won’t work. I know you’re a good person.”

“Being good doesn’t change the fact that in three days from now I will be hungry.”

“Then… I’ll let you feed off me.”

It was stated firmly with a determined nod of a head and a straightening of slender shoulders that drooped only slightly moments later as her voice quavered a little on her next question.

“Would it hurt?”

“Oh, Waverly, I can make it feel _so_ good you would beg me to do it again… and again.” Nicole wasn’t sure if it was her words of the look she gave her, but Waverly’s eyes grew as wide as saucers as her statement sank in. “The kitten, Waverly. Feed her and we’ll talk more about you feeding me later… if the need arises.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big bad, lesbian vampire Nicole being an utter softy as always
> 
> AN - I wanted this chapter to go further but sometimes they just decide after a sentance to go 'okay, we're done!' and refuse to let me add any more so... Til next time!


	4. Chapter 4

Hunger gnawed at Nicole like hot blades ripping through her body. However, surprisingly, it wasn’t the hunger which pulled and clawed her from what passed for her dreams towards consciousness. Rather, it was a gentle, patting touch upon her lips and nose that had her brows knitting together in confusion.

Cracking open her eyes, she blinked in confusion at the sight of what looked like tiny, pink jelly beans set in ginger fur waving around before the darted in to touch and kneed at her lips. Blowing against them, she watched as tiny, needle-like claws unsheathed and confirmed what her eyes saw as they focussed beyond the waving paws to the fuzzy, ginger face of the tiny kitten looking at her with mischief in her eyes.

“Calamity,” Nicole grumbled.

The kitten merped at her name and swatted at her lips like she was trying to catch it between her paws, drawing a giggle from behind her.

Glancing over the kitten, Nicole caught Waverly’s eyes, their sleep softened hazel depths alight with mischief. Her fingers reached out, blazing a heated trail across Nicole’s cheek to tuck a strand of hair back behind her ear before Calamity’s paws could drag it towards her mouth. Her eyes widened, her giggle fading away as hunger suddenly leapt into her eyes, turning them dark as they flickered back and forth between her eyes and mouth.

Nicole became startlingly aware that at some point during the night, their legs had become entangled once again. The soft, fluffy material of her socks tickled along her calf on a teasing trail towards her knees as Waverly shifted slightly. The move caught Nicole’s breath in her lungs and sent a wave of illicit heat through her body. Waverly’s eyes darted back to hers, a knowing look rising within their depths that said she knew exactly how she was feeling. But, before she could comment and tease the young witch about it though, Calamity grew weary of being ignored and broke whatever was growing between them with a well-aimed swipe of her paw across the bridge of her nose that had Nicole regretting ever saving the ginger hellcat.

Waverly’s fingers soothed over the small, stinging wound to both her nose and pride and Nicole found herself enraptured by the warmth of her hand and the scent rising from the fragrant skin over Waverly’s pulse. A pulse that throbbed and beat so close to her lips as Waverly’s heart forced blood through veins that showed as traces of blue. The beat of her heart and pulse rushed and sounded through Nicole’s body and mind like a siren call that had her jaw aching, her teeth itching with the need to sink through skin. To sink inside and gorge herself.

“Nicole? Hey, Nicole?”

Waverly’s voice came from far away, forcing its way through the resounding beating of her heart the fuelled Nicole’s hunger. Blinking through the haze clouding her mind, Nicole closed her mouth, her lips nearly skimming the warm flesh of Waverly’s wrist as she did so.

“Nicole?”

Hunching in around herself, Nicole hid behind the cover of her hands as she sat up. “Fine… I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine—”

How she sounded was the least of their problems. Nicole knew what she must look like in the grip of her hunger. She knew that her face must look pallid and sunken, her flesh pulled tight across her bones. She knew that is she looked at her reflection she would see a ravenous, mindless, creature reflected back. A being that was little more than an animal driven by hunger in a way no human would ever be.

She wanted, _needed_, to feed.

Denying it was as dangerous as Waverly’s books said feeding from a witch, especially while bound to them, could be. She could become little more than a slave to her. A mindless automaton with no free will of her own. And, that had been one of the more pleasant of the possible outcomes laid before them.

After that, the books had described a variety of deaths from instant to ones that lingering and were filled with any number of agonising torments.

Nicole had hoped that Waverly would come to her senses and release her from the bonds that tied them together so she could feed before it was too late. However, Waverly was as stubborn as the Canadian weather.

And now, their time was up.

“You’re right, Waverly. I’m not fine,” Nicole gritted out. “But you just don’t seem to understand how much danger you are putting yourself in with this game you’re playing!”

With a feral snarl curling her lips, Nicole shrugged off the hand Waverly had placed on her shoulder and knocked the witch sprawling onto her back on the bed. Before a sound could leave her softly parted lips, she used the full weight of her body to hold her in place and pinned her arms down where her magic could do no harm.

“Look at me, Waverly. Look at me!” she demanded with a roar that echoed around the room.

Hazel eyes opened and the fear within them… it slowly bled away leaving Nicole reeling in confusion as they pulled her in and washed away her anger. Released from her grip that had suddenly become lax, Waverly’s hands stroked along her arms and shoulders soothingly in soothing patterns.

“It’s going to be okay.”

Nicole pulled away sharply when she realised she was actually melting into Waverly’s touch. Craving it like the touch starved fool that she was. Sitting back on her heels, she frowned down at the woman beneath her but undeterred, Waverly traced patterns upon her thighs where they were bracketing her hips.

“Stop that!” Nicole yelped and jumped off the bed to escape her beguiling captor and all the forms of hunger she was rising within her.

“Waverly, you can’t just— You shouldn’t—” With a cry of frustration, she threw her hands up in the air. Snatched up her clothing, she scooped a protesting Calamity off the bed and stomped towards the door. “I’m going to feed the damn cat.”

As she made her way down the creaking stairs she heard the shifting of covers and creak of bedsprings from the bedroom and Waverly’s voice asking herself, ‘was it something I said?’.

It wasn’t what she said… well, it wasn’t _only_ what she said. It was everything Waverly did, starting with just existing! She was dangerously reckless! Gorgeous! Enticing! Too damn trusting for her own good!

Seriously! Nicole didn’t know if Waverly too sure of her power over her or just didn’t understand how dangerous a hungry vampire was but Nicole was under no illusion. She had witnessed it first-hand centuries before when a whole village had been wiped out in a matter of hours by the hunger of a handful of vampires let loose by Bulshar. And she had felt the strength of her own hunger and the way it clawed and eroded her own control.

Waverly may have trapped her but Nicole didn’t want to lose herself and see her come to any harm.

Though, there were sometimes that the way Waverly looked at her, the way she touched her with hunger and longing writ in her eyes and every line of her body, it made Nicole feel like a tiny, hunted thing at her mercy.

“Nicole Rayleigh Haught, you are too damn old and jaded to act like this.”

Just once or twice would have been bad enough, but Waverly had the ability to turn her world upside down at any time of the day with a single glance and it wasn’t confined to the bed Nicole was forced to share with her because Waverly still yanked her around when Nicole tried to resist.

The one, single, solitary, silver lining to it, Nicole realised, was that, apparently, having her emotions turned upside down was an effective way to stave off the hunger. She hadn’t thought about it too much in the time it had taken her to fix Calamity Jane her food, get a fire blazing enough to warm the house and Waverly, and start a meal for her host to enjoy.

It was also, unfortunately, enough to dull her usually razor-sharp senses, as she didn’t know anyone had somehow made it through the deep snow and onto the property until she heard a knock at the front door.

Moving aside the edge of the lacy curtain, she looked outside, spotting the horrifyingly lurid, neon-pink snowmobile parked crookedly with its front end in a bank of snow near Waverly’s Jeep. A wide path was forged in the otherwise pristine blanket of snow leading to the porch and the bulky shape standing at the door like a padded, neon-green nightmare.

The figure craned their head on one side, the late evening light reflecting off the surface of the mirrored surface of their goggles as they seemed to make an effort to hear beyond the layers and loudness of their clothing if anyone was coming to the door.

“Hmm, a takeaway meal,” she purred, hunger rising sharply within her, as the figure pounded a gloved fist against the door.

“Was that the door?”

Dimly, a corner of Nicole’s consciousness was aware of Waverly’s voice and the sound of her feet on the stairs but, she was already moving. Yanking open the door, she grabbed the startled figure standing there with their hand still raised and pulled them inside. Teeth flashing, she tugged and pulled on the annoying layers of clothing between her and her prey.

If she ever got out of this impossible situation, Nicole swore she was going to move somewhere warmer where clothing was kept to a minimum!

“No! Nicole! No, don’t eat my friend!”

“Waverly! Help!”

Nicole huffed in frustration as her hazel-eyed tormentor somehow managed to squeeze into a gap between her and what she was starting to think was nothing more than a sentient pile of clothing.

“Nicole! Stop it! Jeremy’s here to help.”

“I need to eat!”

“That’s what he’s here for… No! Not that way!” Grunting with effort, Waverly strained to keep some kind of a gap between vampire and friend. “He’s brought you blood from the hospital… or he better have,” she warned when she realised she couldn’t see anything remotely like that with him.

Relenting, reluctantly, Nicole forced her hands to loosen their grip upon the man’s jacket and let his feet touch the floor. He sagged, almost collapsing into a heap as his knees gave out. Despite the mirror effect of his oversize goggles, she could see his eyes as big as saucers staring back at her.

He reeked of fear. The scent of it masking the subtler ones collected through his journey there through snow and trees. Beneath that, Nicole caught scents that had her nose itching. Chemicals, a whiff of gunpowder, and an unusually heavy scent of metal that seemed ingrained into every fibre of his body.

“What are you?”

“Erm, I’m Jeremy.”

Nicole glanced down at the hand sticking out at her in a trembling offer of friendship. “I asked _what_ not who,” she demanded out with a look into his eyes that had his whole body shaking. “You don’t smell wholly human. So, what are you?”

“I— I don’t know,” he admitted with a tremble in his voice. Seeing the frown of confusion on Waverly’s face, he quickly worked to remove his goggles so she could see his eyes and know he was who he had always been. “When I was eleven I was in a car accident with my mother. It— it was bad. Where we were, no one could see the car and we were trapped for three days.”

The pain was evident in his voice as it trailed away, becoming small along with his body as he hunched in around himself. Waverly reached out to him, her hand gently squeezing his shoulder and, even though she didn’t know him, it made Nicole’s heart ache in sympathy.

“Actually, _I_ was trapped for three days. My mother died in the crash,” he whispered. “I kept calling for her. Hoping she would answer. Eventually, I was rescued but my body was mangled. Black Badge took me in, paid for the bills that came with repairing my body.”

“Black Badge?” Nicole drew back at the name. She’d had no personal dealings with the secret organisation but she’d heard of it enough to know that it was bad news for her kind… and for anyone else that they classed as a danger. “Wonderful…” Bulshar, Earps, and Black Badge… Purgatory was going to be the death of her.

“I am sorry for your loss but,” she narrowed her eyes at him, “I’ve been around people with pins and joint replacements, Jeremy, they don’t smell like you so my question still stands.”

“Oh, you’re good! I can see why you wanted her, Waves!”

“Jeremy, I am hungry,” she growled out. “If you don’t answer we’ll see just how much metal I can pull out of you before Waverly can tug on the leash she has put on me.”

“Nicole!”

Despite her admonishment, Nicole didn’t feel Waverly tighten her grip on their bond. She wasn’t sure if Waverly was just that convinced in her own ability or if she just didn’t think she had it in her but, luckily, Jeremy seemed to be unwilling to test her.

“I don’t know what I am!” he spluttered out. “I can feel things!” he waved a hand in the vague direction of his groin but decided not to go into specifics when Nicole gave him a faintly horrified look. “Since the accident, I can sense when my friends are scared but, well, after working with Black Badge and seeing how they work and what they’ve done… I’m not sure if that was always in me or if they did something to me.”

“Jer—”

“I wish it was more useful,” he interrupted Waverly. “Being able to feel when you are scared or hurting isn’t helping us to find Wynonna.”

“You can still feel her then?” Nicole questioned.

“Yes.” Jeremy gave Waverly’s hand a squeeze at her hopeful look. “It’s faint, but yes, I can still feel her.”

“There,” she smiled at Nicole, “I told you she was still alive. My sister is too stubborn to die.”

Nicole could have pointed out that there were worse things than death but Waverly just looked too hopeful for her to crush her spirit with the truth. And she was kind of distracted by a renewed wave of hunger that had her hands clasping at her stomach.

“Oh, Jeez! Jeremy, the blood! Did Gretta give you the blood?”

“Just the one bag,” rummaging through his pockets, he searched desperately for it while trying to ignore the hunger and violence in the vampire’s eyes that were fixed on him once more.

“One? But—”

“It was all she could get, Waves… or all she would give me anyway. Can you blame her though after Bulshar had Clootie murder her sister?” He startled, his hands juggling the bag of blood as Nicole sank to the floor with a thud. “Here,” he thrust the bag of blood into Waverly’s hands and backed as far away as he could.

Nicole watched his every move, her eyes diverting away only to look at the bag of blood. Waverly’s hand caressed her cheek and the move captivated Nicole with the softness of her daring touch as much as the seductive beat of blood racing, warm and temptingly within reach of her aching teeth.

“Nicole—?”

Her voice filtered softly through the fog of hunger, soothing her need.

“Nicole. Tell me what you need me to do. Do you need the blood warming up?”

“Oh god,” Jeremy retched.

“Jeremy,” Waverly hissed over her shoulder, “you are really not helping right now. Why don’t you go into the living room, huh? Just… don’t run.”

Nicole watched him edge his way around the room, his ridiculously coloured, padded clothing rustling loudly with every step. It didn’t matter how careful he thought he was being… How fast he thought he could move… She could take him down and have her fill of his blood before he could even realise she was moving.

But…

There was Waverly.

Eyes flicking away from the man, Nicole focussed on her. Even then, with the evidence more than clear right before her, there was no fear in her damnably pretty eyes.

“You should run.”

“You’re not a monster, Nicole. You don’t scare me. Now, do you need the blood warming?”

Not trusting herself to open her mouth again without it ending with her teeth sinking into flesh, Nicole nodded once and watched a soft, bright smile lighting Waverly’s face.

She must have blanked and lost a couple of minutes after then but didn’t realise until Waverly was back in front of her again with an apologetic smile pinching her lips as she held the bag of blood clasped within her hands.

“I wasn’t sure if you wanted a glass or a mug or—”

Snatching the bag from her, Nicole pierced the plastic with sharp teeth and drank. As she swallowed down the red lifeblood, she stared at Waverly intently, looking for a hint of the revulsion she was sure she would see at the sight of what she was.

“This will only hold me for so long,” Nicole pointed out once her hunger was sated enough to find her voice.

“Three days, I know.”

“Actually… a bit longer,” Nicole admitted. She held up the half-full bag. “Have you got an old milk carton or something to put the rest in?”

“What? But? I thought—”

“We don’t need to drink a lot, Waverly.”

“But… with how you were acting about it being _so_ dangerous.”

“The hunger is the dangerous thing, Waverly. It whittles away at our control and once that goes…” she sighed. “It is not unheard of for a starving vampire to chew through the throats of five men just to get this much when just a single bite would usually do. More often than not it is done as a punishment but newly turned vampires can have a lack of control until their sire teaches them.”

“Have you ever— I’m sorry, that’s probably very rude to ask.”

“No need to apologise. And no, Shae was a _very_ good teacher on all manner of things.” Nicole didn’t want to dwell on why the flash of jealousy in Waverly’s eyes at the mention of Shae pleased her so much, but it did.

“Well, well, look who’s back,” chuckling softly, Nicole snaked her fingers across the floor as Calamity waggled her butt in the air and dove for them from beneath the kitchen table.

“Is, erm, is everything okay in here?” Jeremy peeked his head around the door and did an obvious double-take at the almost domestic sight of Waverly and Nicole sitting side by side on the kitchen floor playing with a ginger kitten. “I’ll take the lack of blood and death as a yes.”

“Is he usually like this?” Nicole huffed as she climbed up from the floor in a smooth, gliding motion that seemed to meet Waverly’s approval going by the slightly glazed look in her eyes.

“Ehh, usually he’s more of a dork,” Waverly teased her friend.

“Hey! You’re not wrong but, in my defence, hey!” He edged further into the room, his eyes fixed upon Nicole warily. “So, no more bitey, bitey?”

“No. You’re safe. For now.”

“And for two whole seconds there you almost seemed normal.”

“Jeremy, don’t be rude.”

“He’s right, I’m not normal. You’re the only one that doesn’t want to believe that.”

“Nicole Rayleigh Haught. I know what you’re trying to do, and it won’t work.”

“And what am I trying to do?”

“Make me and everyone else think you’re a monster so I’ll let you go. And, it won’t work because you’re not and I need your help to rescue Wynonna. I miss my sister, Nicole! Please, help me get her back.”

Nicole closed her eyes, trying to block out the tears filling Waverly’s eyes but they tugged at her heart, making her want to do anything to make sure none ever fell from her eyes ever again.

“Okay,” she sighed, cracking open her eyes to find Waverly gazing up at her hopefully from closer than she expected, “I’ll help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN - lately I prefer to put out longer chapters than this but I'm hoping this will kickstart my muse for this story and stop vamp!Nicole from nibbling on me in my dreams... not entirely a bad thing but she is bitey ;)


	5. Chapter 5

“I still don’t know why we can’t use a map online. It would be so much easier than… this!”

“You should see what she can do with a whiteboard,” Nicole muttered carefully under her breath.

She hid a smile as Jeremy flapped his hands at the thick stack of maps Waverly had carefully unrolled and unfurled to cover the top of the dining table. His repeated whining drew a loud huff out of Waverly and, even though she was keeping her head down and concentrating on the drinks she was fixing, Nicole heard the distinct sound of a slap landing on his shoulder as well as his mumbled cry of pain and protest.

Waverly had sprung into action with a cry of ‘yes!’ the moment she had reaffirmed that _yes_, she would help, and, _yes_, she meant it. But, _no_, she wouldn’t pinkie swear. _Fine!_ But only _one_ pinkie swear!

Moving the mugs further down the counter where Waverly and Jeremy could reach them when they wanted, Nicole leaned back against it, breathing in the earthy, fragrant tones carried in the steam rising from the herbal tea she had fixed for herself. She wasn’t thirsty since she had sated her hunger for blood but, even after so many years, there was a comfort in the rituals of her old existence that time couldn’t erase.

She lost herself in it for the moment, her eyes drifting shut as she was transported back to simpler times, only to crack them open as she felt the slightest of tugs along the line connecting herself to Waverly. Waverly was still talking animatedly to Jeremy, explaining for what had to be the tenth time that maps could sometimes reveal things that could be lost when they were turned into digital copies. Which, he would have known all about if he had at least made the effort to watch _National Treasure_ or _The Goonies_.

As she got her point across, Waverly’s toned arms moved too. And, as they moved, her fingers twisted and weaved in seemingly unconscious patterns, twining through where Nicole could only imagine that the magical connection lay. And Nicole could feel every move of her slender, capable fingers as the plucked and strummed along it like it was a tightly strung guitar string that was connected to the instrument of her heart… and seemingly things a bit lower down in her body going by the ache building there.

Shifting slightly in an attempt to assuage the ache between her thighs, Nicole tried to ignore the sensation, and what it was doing to her, so as not to draw attention to it and embarrass the young witch or herself.

Only, her treacherous captor was seemingly more aware than she had been letting on going by both the coy glance from beneath thick lashes she shot her way, as well as the seductive way she softly bit into her bottom lip with pearly white teeth while she ran her thumb in a sliding motion that almost made Nicole whimper aloud.

Gripping the edge of the counter with a trembling hand, her other almost crushing the mug still in her grasp into a million fragments, Nicole locked her knees together and silently cursed Waverly Earp in several languages that had died out in her lifetime.

Nicole wasn’t sure if she wanted to curse Jeremy for being there or thank him as his presence was likely the only thing stopping her from marching across the room, grabbing Waverly, and making a complete fool of herself.

“What are we looking for with all these that we can’t find on a proper map anyway?” Jeremy whined, oblivious to the sexual tension building around him.

“Proper map?” Waverly exclaimed in disbelief at the slight to her maps. “We’re looking for things that _Google Maps_ can’t see!” Waverly huffed, throwing up her hands and inadvertently tugging on Nicole with the motion. “Help me out here,” she begged the vampire.

Nicole took a long breath, drawing it out until Waverly tapped a foot impatiently. Then, to draw it out a little longer, she looked at Waverly through the wisps of steam as she drank her tea. “Maps are a slice through history that Google will never be able to replicate.”

“But… old maps are scanned all the time.”

“Maybe,” Nicole smiled. “But, did you know that maps can hold secrets, Jeremy? I believe in one of the movies Waverly was referencing secrets were written on the Declaration of Independence that was only visible to people that knew how to reveal them and, in the other, only the original map used in conjunction with another object revealed its secret.”

“That’s just in movies though. Speaking of, I have to ask… thoughts on _Twilight_?”

“I’m over six-hundred years old, Jeremy,” Nicole stated, blatantly ignoring his question about _that_ drivel. “Believe me, I’ve seen things that not even the most imaginative of authors could dream up. And, where do you think the movies get their ideas from anyway?”

“I keep forgetting you’re a vampire… until you do things like that!” he whimpered as Nicole suddenly went still in a way no living creature could replicate. A shiver ran down his spine as she gave a smile that radiated a cold menace and showed a hint of the fangs that had been snapping at his neck just hours before.

“Play nice, Nicole. Jeremy is the one bringing you blood.”

“Fine. Only if you answer one thing for me… What are you looking at in these maps?” Nicole put on her very best innocent expression and lifted the edge of the top map to look at the ones below it as Waverly let out a huff. Really though, past the chance to tease the witch, Nicole was a little confused as to what clue or secret that would reveal her sister’s whereabouts, Waverly hoped to find amongst them.

“I’m looking for a place Bulshar would be using as his lair,” Waverly huffed. Slapping Nicole’s hands away from the maps, she turned them herself, pointing out where buildings used to be and areas that looked like tunnels that were marked on older maps.

“Tunnels?” Nicole quirked a brow questioningly. “Waves, Bulshar doesn’t do tunnels.”

“Then where?” Waverly frowned.

“He’s the kind of vampire that will be hiding out in the lap of luxury. Think big and bold. Shae—” she swallowed down the memories before trying again. “She told me of one time where he made use of a palace in Austria.”

“Made use?” Jeremy swallowed around the question as Nicole turned her head and fixed her gaze upon him.

“He had his wife enchant the palace with her magic, trapping everyone inside so they couldn’t escape or send for help. Then over the months that it took for him to grow bored, he threw parties and sucked everyone dry until everyone in the palace and the villages around it were husks. He does things a little quieter these days but he is not the kind that would give up palaces for tunnels.”

“Purgatory isn’t known for palaces,” Waverly frowned.

“There’s the Wainright Hotel but that is only a little better than the Murder Motel. It’s not really called the Murder Motel,” Jeremy clarified at Nicole’s slightly horrified expression. “It kind of looks like it would give the Bates Motel nightmares and several people have met unfortunate ends there. Hmm, maybe a name change would help get customers in?”

“It really wouldn’t,” Waverly muttered. “Wynonna stayed there for one night when she came back to Purgatory. She got bit by so many fleas and bedbugs I thought she would scratch her skin clean off.”

It was a memory that would usually have her scratching at herself in sympathy but for a change, it made her smile wistfully, an ache settling in her heart at the thought of not being able to forge more ridiculous, and itchy, memories with her sister.

Waverly was brought back to herself by the reassuring presence of Nicole’s body as the vampire shifted closer. In all the years that Champ had been her boyfriend, Waverly had never felt the comfort in sharing a bed and home with him as she did with Nicole. No matter what Nicole said to try to instil fear in her, Waverly knew she was a good person. And she felt it then in the brush of Nicole’s hand against her own. Close enough to encourage and allow their fingers to entwine.

Nicole swept her thumb back and forth across the back of Waverly’s hand. She wasn’t sure if it was entirely to soothe Waverly but she drew comfort from it herself and kept up the motion for far longer than was strictly necessary… even after Jeremy gave their clasped hands a pointed look.

“Where on the map is this hotel then?”

Nicole had already seen it clearly but she wanted to distract Waverly from the thoughts that had brought about such a wistful expression. Waverly’s soft smile and a squeeze of her fingers let her know that her witchy captor with the beautiful hazel eyes knew what she was trying to do, and that it was welcome.

“Thank you.”

“Yes. Well. The maps?”

With their hands still clasped, Waverly pointed out the Wainright on the newest map on top of the pile and flipped through the layers to reveal it and the landscape back through the years.

“It— Well actually, a lot of the main buildings in Purgatory had a series of tunnels linking them together for smuggling purposes.”

“Hmm. Definitely not Bulshar’s style but, there are some that travel with him that would make use of something like that given half a chance. Has there been any reports of missing people in town?”

“I’ve been too busy trying to find Wynonna,” Waverly admitted with a shrug of regret. “Jer, anything on the PSD grapevine? BBD shares space with them,” she explained for Nicole’s benefit.

“Shares?” Jeremy snorted. “Stolen out from Nedley from what he says.”

“Chrissy says he’s still bitter about that. Even Wynonna said that Dolls was a bit agent aggressive doing that,” Waverly admitted. “Focus, Jer. We need interoffice intel, not gossip.”

“Sure. Erm. Nothing unusual that I’ve heard but everything has been slow and pretty boring in town with the weather taking a turn. Apart from…”

“Apart from?”

“You probably won’t have heard but the night you— ya know,” he whispered loudly, nodding his head in Nicole’s direction. “Your boyfriend—”

“Ex. _Very_ ex.”

“Oh. Well, Champ and the York brothers marched right up to the front desk and handed themselves in to Nedley. They were confessing their crimes all night.” Jeremy shuddered at what he had heard had come to light from their confessions. “Was that your doing?” He glanced at the vampire cautiously, more than a little bit afraid to sound like he was accusing her of anything.

“The crimes were all theirs. I just encouraged them to talk about them to the right people.”

“Then… thank you. From what I heard they got off lightly in being allowed to do that. Maybe too lightly.”

“Jer!” Waverly stared at her friend, her jaw hanging open slightly at the level of hatred that had suddenly come into his voice. Usually, he was softness itself. Always looking on the bright side. But, right then, he sounded like he wanted to right Champ and his friends apart with his bare hands.

“Sorry. Actually, no, I’m not sorry. I know he’s your boyfriend, Waves—”

“Ex,” Nicole butted in with a reminder of Waverly’s dating status in regards to the boy-man.

“— and maybe you think that means you have to defend him. But, whatever time he does behind bars, it will be too short.”

“I’m not defending him, Jer. If anything, I feel sick that I never realised what he was doing,” she frowned, her hand tightening around the comfort of Nicole’s; the woman that had put a stop to them. Her hand squeezed back, gently, offering reassuring support. “I’m just not used to hearing my best friend sounding like that.”

“Yes, well,” he blushed and kicked at the worn floor tiles. “Some things are worth getting mad about. Dudebro asshats that think they can treat women like that are on the top of the list. Am I right?”

With only the slightest of eye rolls, Nicole reached out and bumped her fist against the one he held out to her. He grinned wildly, bouncing up and down on his toes. “Tell anyone I did that and I will eat your face off.”

Waverly shook her head in rebuke but couldn’t contain her smile as she caught the light of humour curling the corner of Nicole’s mouth and lighting her eyes. “We really need to work on your people skills.”

“My people skills are just fine, Waverly… when I’m not being held captive by enticing witches.”

“You think I’m enticing?”

“Tell me more about the Wainright,” she tried to deflect quickly.

“You think Bulshar could have Wynonna there?”

Nicole studied the maps before them again and shrugged. After so long she really didn’t think they would find Waverly’s sister, at least, not in any kind of condition that Waverly was hoping. “It’s a place to start.” She ran her fingers over the map, pointing out other buildings that were just as big and likely as any other in Purgatory. “There are others but they are further out and getting to them in this weather would be difficult even for me normally.” She glanced down at her wrist pointedly.

“Even if I could do anything,” she ignored the way Nicole pursed her lips like she wasn’t sure she believed her and ploughed on before Nicole could challenge her. “Everyone always leaves me and I’m not letting you leave me behind too.”

There was more to Waverly’s pained words than the current situation. That much was very clear.

Ignoring Jeremy’s presence in the room, Nicole turned her body directly into Waverly’s path, gently forcing her to make the choice to either meet her gaze or continue staring at her cleavage as she leaned closer and pitched her voice for Waverly’s ears only. “Despite your trickery, Waverly, I don’t want to see you hurt.”

Tenderly, Nicole cupped Waverly’s cheek in her hand. Warmth flooded through her skin and travelled straight to her heart as Waverely nuzzled into her palm like she needed her touch to help her breathe.

“Just, don’t leave me behind.”

“I promise.” Nicole blinked in confusion at how easily the promise had left her lips and how right it felt making it. She wasn’t sure if it was magic, maybe the connection forged between them by it, or if it was just the effect that Waverly Earp had on her but she didn’t regret her words. Not one bit.

“My father wasn’t a good man, Nicole. He was cruel and inattentive at best. Mostly he was drunk and quick with his words and fists. Mama protected us and took the brunt of his bad moods until she left us. Willa, she was actually worse than he was. She used his moods and his moments of inattention to bully and scare me.”

Nicole wanted to ask why Wynonna hadn’t stopped her from causing hurt to Waverly that she could still see haunted her but, not wanting to interrupt, she held back her questions.

“She came close to killing me one time too. Then, one night, The Seven came. You’ve heard of them?”

“Yes,” Nicole ground out passed tightly gritted teeth. “The worst of the Bulshar’s Revenants. They were always first in line to act on Bulshar’s _whims_.” They had also been the ones that had taken Shae.

“They managed to get on the land and somehow breached the house. They got pa and Willa. She was never seen again but Pa… Wynonna grabbed his old gun, Peacemaker and tried to stop them—”

Raking in a shuddery breath, Waverly shook off the memories and filled herself with the strength and quiet understanding Nicole exuded before attempting to continue.

“Wynonna had never used a gun before let alone that thing… I never told Wynonna that I did. She told me to hide but I saw what happened… They were huddled around him when she shot at them… and killed him by accident.”

“I’m so, so sorry.”

Waverly nodded jerkily into the soft hand still tenderly cradling her face.

“Our aunt and uncle took us in but Wynonna— she kept getting into trouble,” Waverly grimaced. “She broke the law for fun and got taken away because she wouldn’t stop telling the truth about vampires to people that didn’t want to know the truth. And then… just like everyone else… one day she just left me. Just upped and left me behind without a second thought. Forgotten.”

“Hey,” Nicole rested her forehead gently against Waverly’s, hoping somehow that the closeness would better convince Waverly that her words were earnest. “I’ve only known you for a matter of days and I already know there is _no_ forgetting you, Waverly Earp. Erm, you’re still trouble though!” she quickly added on and pulled away as much as Waverly would allow, as Jeremy let out some kind of a sound that was too much like an ‘Awwww!’ of delight.

Stepping away from the beguiling witch, Nicole determinedly turned her attention back to the maps and plucked Calamity Jane, who had somehow scaled the table to curl up on and fall asleep right in the middle of them, up and handed her to a softly smiling Waverly.

“Don’t,” she warned as she felt the warmth of Waverly’s body as she edged closer.

“What?”

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m not a nice person.”

“I think you are.”

“So do I.”

“I might not be able to bite Waverly or hurt her in any way, Jeremy but _you_ are not protected.”

“Fine, so you’re scary and dangerous… still kind of nice though.” He ploughed on despite the lump forming in his throat born from the glare she was giving him. “Ignoring what I just saw, which is pretty impossible,” he yelped in fear as Nicole’s hands tightened on the edge of the table hard enough to make the wood creak and groan ominously. “You get to be called nice just for what you did to Champ and the York brothers! So… deal with it… Yeah, you’re a goddamn hero so deal with it!” He folded his arms across his narrow chest with more grit and determination than he was feeling and glared back at her.

Holding up her hands in appeasement after a forceful slap to the shoulder from Waverly, Nicole went back to looking at the maps while Waverly tried to calm down a quivering Jeremy from giving her what was the strangest compliment she’d received in over six hundred years.

_“That is because you don’t get out around the right kind of people enough, my love. People that are alive.”_

Nicole’s eyes welled up with tears as Shae’s ghost wandered through her mind unbidden again with a voice laden with humour.

_“I like them, Nicole. You know you do too.”_

She looked across the room to watch as Waverly crouched before Jeremy and took him through some breathing exercises to help calm him down from her bad mood.

_“And is that bad mood because the girl managed to get the jump on? She does look like her blood would have been sweet, doesn’t she?”_

Nicole glared across the room, a possessive growl locked behind her teeth as Shae’s ghost leaned over Waverly, her fingers moving in a sweeping invitation across where her pulse beat beneath soft skin as she’d done many times before over the years they had hunted together.

_“So possessive,” Shae chuckled. “If I was alive you would stop me from feeding from her pretty neck, wouldn’t you? Interesting. How about this then. Maybe your mood is because you fear losing her?”_

That, Nicole knew, was the crux of it right there. Revealed in the ghostly voice of the love she had lost. She couldn’t stand the thought of losing Waverly how she had Shae and, if they went against Bulshar, there seemed no other outcome. Therefore, it was better to push her away by any means necessary.

_“Or, my sweet, darling fool, you could let go of your fear… and your mood… and help keep your little witch and her friends safe.”_

Nicole’s eyes drifted shut as the memory of Shae’s touch grazed across her jaw and cheek with a brush of fingers and lips.

“Nicole?”

The whisper of Waverly’s voice calling her name broke through like the warmth of a rising sun brushing aside a fog of pain and loneliness that had lingered for far too long. Her fingers warmed her jaw where Shae’s had last lingered while her thumb sweep in a touch as light as a kiss across the corner of her mouth.

“Are you okay?”

“Just a ghost saying hello and giving me a much-needed kick to the ass,” Nicole smiled softly at the concern and confusion flitting across Waverly’s face. “I am sorry for my behaviour,” she spoke loudly enough for Jeremy to hear as well. “Going against Bulshar is… dangerous. But trying to push you away from your task in some foolish attempt to save you and save myself the pain of seeing you hurt by being a dick, is beyond stupid of me.”

“Yes, yes it is,” Waverly gently admonished.

“I’ve promised I will help find your sister and I stand by that. No more fighting you on it. But! You have to listen to me about them. Okay? Bulshar is not to be taken lightly. Shae knew how he was and she still lost her life.”

_“But, only _I_ did. Did you ever wonder why that was?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN - Shae wanted to visit and Nicole was being a grump... hopefully next chapter they will get working on finding Wynonna.


	6. Chapter 6

Fuelled by what was undoubtedly an unhealthy amount of caffeine that had Jeremy jittering around the homestead at an alarming rate, they continued to pour through the maps and all the data that Waverly had accumulated on Purgatory with her research. Nicole found herself time and again simply stopping what she was doing to listen to her and watch the burning passion and wild gesticulations with which Waverly delivered all her facts and figures.

“You’re staring,” Jeremy whispered out of the corner of his mouth, nudging Nicole in the side with his elbow while Waverly was distracted.

“Am not,” she hissed back, ducking her head to hide the blush she could feel burning across her cheeks. “She’s just… amazing… smart! Very smart,” she finished with a whisper out of the corner of her mouth that had Jeremy grinning as Waverly looked up to see what was going on when her voice rose too sharply.

Any doubts she might have had about Jeremy, Nicole found that they had mostly abated over the hours. There was no doubting that the man was smart, but, there was an innocence about him. A way of looking at things that said that most of what he knew about her kind came from books and being in the sterile environment of a laboratory rather than _actual_ experience. Whereas Waverly had been born into a family that had been hunting vampires and other supernatural and paranormal beings for generations. It all gave them unique perspectives on the problem at hand that somehow seemed to mesh and helped them push past to see things that individually they might have missed or gotten stuck on.

Jeremy was also the first of them to flag and wane as evening crept into night, until a question directed his way garnered a silence that was finally broken by a snorted out snore delivered from the crook of his elbow where his face and settled while Waverly had been talking about the Clockmaker’s mansion.

A smile curving the corner of her mouth, Nicole lifted a throw from a stack on the back of a nearby chair and draped it around his shoulders.

“What?” she asked almost guiltily as she caught Waverly smiling softly at her like she had done something nice.

“Nothing,” Waverly grinned, leaning closer to press a quick kiss to Nicole’s cheek right where her dimple made a stunning appearance when she smiled, in a move that rocked the vampire back on her heels.

Nicole touched her cheek, her fingers pressing against the area still tingling with the memory of Waverly soft lips. “Yes, well,” blushing, she cleared her throat and gave the maps more attention than they deserved after all the hours of staring at them. Waverly settled at her side again, a soft hum of contentment purring from her throat. “I never thought about it before but, how do you manage to stay awake as long as I do?”

“Too many late shifts at Shorty’s?” Waverly shrugged. “I’m just used to seeing the sun coming up after pulling those and stocking the bar for the next day. Also… I think this helps.” Waverly lifted her wrist and ran a finger across the invisible bond. She bit her lip, her eyes lighting with mischief as a visible shiver ran through Nicole. She was tempted to tease her more but dropped her hands back to her sides as Nicole narrowed her eyes at her with a playful glint lighting the soft brown of them.

Nicole hummed softly and decided to let it drop. Challenging Waverly about the spell she had cast to bind them together would only bring the same answers that always left her wondering if Waverly was really naive about the power she wielded or if she knew more than she was letting on. And, in the end, it would make little difference other than to have her getting frustrated, as she had already promised to help.

And she was nothing if not a woman or her word.

“Do you want to take a break and let your friend sleep in peace for a while?”

“Hmm, what do you have in mind?”

Nicole leaned closer, putting her mouth barely a hairsbreadth away from the delicate shell of Waverly’s ear. “Not whatever it was you were just thinking of that had your heartrate spiking like crazy then.”

“You would be surprised at the things I can think of,” Waverly purred as she turned. Their lips were so close she could taste the promise of Nicole’s kiss and see the heat of it in the depths of her eyes that were wide, dark pools filling her vision.

“No, I really wouldn’t,” Nicole chuckled softly.

Stepping back from the temptation that was Waverly Earp, Nicole fixed them both another drink of tea after Waverly gave a nod of assent at the suggestion.

Leaving Jeremy to snore and drool against the table, they made their way through to the dimly lit living room. As Waverly settled on the couch, Nicole went to sit in one of the chairs but a warning tug on her wrist changed her direction and she sat beside Waverly with nothing more than a soft grunt of protest at what felt like blatant misuse of the bond.

Waverly quickly shifted position, making use of her body and the thickness of the heavy throw blanket Nicole pulled around to cover their laps.

A blanket of quiet settled over the house that not even Jeremy’s sleepy grunts and snorts, nor Calamity’s purring as managed to stretch her tiny body over both of their laps could break.

Even though the only light came from the kitchen, it was enough to render the landscape beyond the panes of the windows, a solid, impenetrable blackness that was far removed from the bustle and brightness of Las Vegas as anything could get.

It was comforting though.

In a way that it shouldn’t be given what they were doing there and what had led Nicole to be there in the first place. However, as Nicole settled into the warmth and comfort of the woman at her side… who was somehow managing to hog what was a sizable throw blanket, and quietly drank her tea, Nicole felt… comfort. The kind of comfort that reminded her of both her childhood and Shae.

Nicole gave a sigh beside her that made Waverly’s heart ache with the longing held within it. Reaching up, she gently slid her fingers along the fine line of Nicole’s jaw, hooking her chin to draw her attention that seemed lost back through the ages that Waverly had only read about in books. “What are you thinking about?”

Nicole captured Waverly’s hand in her own, her fingers entwining with the ones that had danced over her jaw as she laced her own with them on her lap.

“Well, don’t take this the wrong way and toss me through the window—”

“I wouldn’t do that… it would let too much cold air in.”

“Gee, thanks,” Nicole drawled at Waverly’s cheeky grin. “I was thinking about Shae.”

“Oh?” Waverly shifted position carefully, trying not to disturb Calamity as she moved to where she could get a better look at Nicole’s face. “What about Shae?” The name of the vampire that had created the one at her side, the woman that Nicole had loved, stuck in her craw just a little more than Waverly would have liked. She was not a jealous person… or, at least, she had never been that way when Champ had cheated on her numerous times.

But, maybe that said more about the other person and her depth of feelings for them than it did her own personality?

“Just— We used to spend time like this, just sitting and being together. Usually reading. Anything and everything. Usually silently to ourselves but sometimes to each other. It was… It was a habit we got into early on in our relationship that I never allowed myself after she was gone. It doesn’t sound like much—”

“It sounds like the perfect way to spend time with a loved one to me,” Waverly smiled.

“It is— was,” Nicole sighed wistfully. “I never thought I would feel that level of comfort again.”

“But, you do… here?” Waverly asked cautiously, the remnants of jealously starting to loosen their hold and fade away.

“Despite everything,” she gave a pointed glance to where the crossbow was sitting on a side table. “Yes, I do.”

“I’m glad.” Waverly rested her head against Nicole’s shoulder as she settled back against her side. “I- I would love to hear more about her.” The words surprised herself… and Nicole if the jolt her body gave was any indication. “If you ever want to that is?”

“Going by your stalker habits you probably know more about her and our life than I’ve forgotten,” Nicole teased with what she hoped wasn’t too strained a chuckle.

“I was more interested in you,” Waverly admitted.

“Because she is dead,” Nicole nodded in understanding.

“No. I- I just always felt drawn to you from the moment I first saw your picture,” Waverly admitted shyly. “I didn’t even realise you were a vampire at first until you kept turning up in photos and my research and then—”

“Then?”

“I couldn’t stop looking for you.” She blushed furiously under the weight of Nicole’s gaze.

“Waverly Earp, your stalking habits are worse than I thought.”

“Hey! I can’t help it if you’re gorgeous!”

“I am, huh?” Nicole teased lightly, delighting in the fact that Waverly was the one being wrongfooted for once, and by her own words, instead of herself.

“Yes. Yes, you are,” Waverly glanced up at her shyly. “It scares me. _You_ scare me.”

“I scare you?” Nicole frowned at how surprisingly sad that made her feel even though she had gone out of her way to try and make Waverly fear her.

“Have you ever wanted to do crazy things just to test yourself? Like jumping out of a plane? Or swim far, far out into the ocean until you can’t see the bottom any more? Or eat geoduck?”

“Isn’t that the one that looks like a pe—”

“Yes,” Waverly smiled at the look of discomfort on Nicole’s face that stopped her from completing the word. “You make me feel like that— scared in a good way,” she amended as the look of discomfort threatened to shift to disgust as Nicole was still obviously trying to wash the thought of the penis-shaped clam out of her mind. “You’re gorgeous but more than that, you’re amazing and so good—”

“I’m not—”

“Hush!” Waverly ordered. “You don’t get a say in that! You _are_ good. You just don’t see it. You don’t see you how I do. Every other vampire I have looked at has made it to the history books because of the evil they have done. The people they have killed. Even Shae before she turned you had a reputation that overshadowed Bulshar’s and made him look like a neutered puppy. And then, she met you and changed her ways.”

“Don’t mistake my ability to fly under the radar to mean I’m safe, Waverly. I’m not a neutered puppy either.”

Waverly rolled her eyes at Nicole’s obstinance. “_You_ made Champ and his buddies hand themselves in, where Jeremy who is the softest of soft things wanted to kill them. _You_ saved Calamity Jane from freezing to death alone in the barn,” Waverly ticked off on her fingers. “And, _you_ haven’t tried to kill me.” She nodded decisively with the final point.

“I can’t hurt you even if I wanted,” Nicole felt beholden to remind her.

“You never _tried_, Nicole.” Smiling, she tapped a finger along Nicole’s jaw as it dropped open in realisation. “That doesn’t mean you could,” she added. “Witchcraft is a tricky beast with as many loopholes as there are rules. But, you never bothered to test it or tried to hurt me even when I had the crossbow on you or while we’ve shared a bed. It never really crossed your mind to try, did it?”

“No, it didn’t. And I wouldn’t,” Nicole mumbled beneath her breath as she mulled everything over. “I’ve killed before, but I’ve always tried to find another way. It used to drive Shae crazy,” she smiled. “Was she really as bad as you say?”

“From what I read—” Waverly trailed off with an apologetic shrug.

Pushing back the edge of the throw blanket, Nicole placed Calamity securely on the warm pillow of Waverly’s lap and walked across the room to the window. Beyond the cold pane of glass, she could see the flurries of fresh snow billowing through the air as it fell to add to the blanket still covering the ground. It was Waverly her eyes returned to though. Her reflection shining like a beacon of colour in the glass.

“After Shae turned me, she was convinced I would soon be helping her to forge a path of destruction across the known world and beyond but it never happened. I didn’t want an existence like that and I thought it just talk. Over the years she used to tease me and say that my love had changed her. Maybe if she hadn’t met me, she would still be alive.”

“If she hadn’t met you and changed her ways, she would have killed hundreds, maybe thousands and someone would have hunted her down for it. More importantly, if she hadn’t turned you, you wouldn’t be here right now.”

Putting a huffy Calamity down on the couch, Waverly made her way over to Nicole. She kept her back to her, her eyes finding hers in her reflection even if she refused to turn around. The subtle rejection didn’t stop Waverly though, she stepped closer, wrapping her arms around Nicole’s trim waist as she leaned into her back. She felt the movement of muscle and a relaxation of tension as Nicole released a deep sigh and sagged back into her hold.

“I would give anything to ease the pain you still feel from losing her but, Nicole I wouldn’t want to give up this moment for anything. You and Shae, you made each other into what you are with your love. If she had been truly upset at the thought of giving up her destructive rampage, wouldn’t she have just walked away?”

“Maybe,” Nicole allowed.

“Instead she stayed, with you.”

“I still miss her, Waves. Given how long-lived we can be, Vampires can have problems letting go of people and even trinkets,” Nicole chuckled.

“What do you hold on to?”

“Memories. There’s not much else that can survive for six-hundred years.”

“There are some of my memories I wish I could get rid of,” Waverly shuddered. “What’s it like… being turned into a Vampire?”

Nicole wished she could see Waverly’s expression but her face was pressed tightly against her back and her arms were wrapped around her waist equally as tightly. “And why would you want to know that, Waverly?”

“Just curious.”

“Hmm,” she hummed softly. Waverly was nothing if not curious. Since she had been there, trapped by the spell that bound them together, Waverly had filled even the tensest and determined silence that Nicole could muster with endless questions born from an insatiable curiosity that sometimes seemed to be more about what made her tick than Vampires in general. “It’s— it depends on the one turning you, I’ve heard.”

“How do you mean?”

“Mine was relatively easy… I think… I was injured at the time. So close to death that I can’t remember much of it.” She paused, her fingers moving unbidden to find the edge of the scar upon her face. “Shae had been… courting me, I guess you could call it, at the time and I had already decided I wanted to be with her. Picking the time and place was taken out of my hands by the English.”

Waverly lifted her head as the memories seemed to shift Nicole’s accent into one that was distinctly Scottish. Even after all her research, she was suddenly, startlingly aware of the history the woman she held in her arms had seen and lived through. The hardships, the battles won and lost, the changes in the very landscape. The lives born and lost to time while her own appearance remained the same.

“I was left to die on the land that generations of my family had been born upon. My blood soaking into the earth until Shae found me amongst the dead and saved me even though she was almost certain I was too far gone to make it and all she was giving me was a slightly quicker end to the pain.”

“I’m glad she tried,” Waverly somehow managed to get out past the tears closing off her throat. “You said it depends on the one turning you?”

“Shae saved me, turned me… with love in her heart and intentions. I have seen others turned as punishment with a different kind of fear and pain clawing at their throat and soul. It is not easy or pleasant. Turning people against their will, if it is done wrong, or right depending on if it is what the Vampire wants, it can lead to the one being turned never getting their mind back. When that happens they are more often than not wild, mindless beasts that are consumed by an unquenchable thirst for blood until they’re put down.”

Waverly shuddered at the thought and burrowed impossibly closer to Nicole for warmth and comfort. She breathed with her, matching the slow in and out with her own as the beat of Nicole’s heart sounded beneath her ear in a lulling, soothing rhythm.

“Why have you never turned anyone?” she whispered into the stillness of the room, her words muffled against Nicole’s spine.

Nicole sighed softly, her fingers moving back and forth almost unconsciously over the soft, delicate skin over Waverly’s hands where they were still clasped over her stomach.

“Would you turn me how Shae did you?” Waverly questioned without giving Nicole time to answer her previous question.

“If you were dying?” She felt Waverly’s head bob up and down jerkily against her back, the motion revealing almost as much as her words did of the fear behind her question. “Waves…” gently loosening Waverly’s hold, Nicole turned in her arms and let the chorded strength of them tighten once more as she held Waverly closer rather than step back.

“Being a Vampire is a lonely existence, Waverly. Long, lonely and, despite how long we can exist, one that comes with an axe hanging over our heads… or a stake pressed to our hearts. I know that people face death every day just by stepping outside their homes but if a Vampire dies…”

“Everyone you have turned dies too,” Waverly finished for Nicole as her voice drifted into the past.

“Exactly.”

“But, you didn’t.”

“No. For some reason, I continued on, even though I didn’t want to. But the thought that if something happened to me it would end the life of another,” she sighed, shaking her head sadly. “Maybe I will feel differently when I find someone. The right person. The one worth risking everything for.”

Dipping her head, Nicole breathed in the subtle scent that was simply Waverly and basked in the warmth of her body. Her heart stuttered and beat loudly against her ribs at the sudden thought rushed through her veins that maybe she had found that ‘one’.

“So, even if I was… dying?”

Nicole smiled against the softness of Waverly’s hair. “One: I would never turn anyone without consent. Two: you are a witch, turning you might be impossible anyway even if I wasn’t bound by your wicked little spell.”

“And three?”

Nicole rolled her eyes at Waverly’s stubbornness. “Who says there’s a three? Fine,” she relented with a smile as Waverly titled her head back enough to fix her with a look that was as determined as it was adorable. “Three: your sister is a hunter. I think it is in both our best interests if we make sure it is a scenario that doesn’t come up.”

“That doesn’t really answer my question—”

“And yet it is all you are getting, Earp,” Nicole smirked. “It looks like your friend is finally stirring.” She nodded back to where Jeremy was finally lifting his head, loose pages from his notebook glued to his face by the drool that had leaked from his wide-open mouth.

“Huh? Wha’s happenin’?”

“I still have questions.” Waverly’s tugged gently on the bond between them, turning Nicole’s questioning gaze back to her before she could put any distance between them.

“I wouldn’t doubt it, Waves. They can wait though… not like I’m going anywhere.”

Waverly locked her knees together in a last-ditch attempt to stop herself from melting into a puddle on the floor as Nicole gave her a rakish smile that flashed a blinding display of teeth and dimples, and a wink over her shoulder as she walked across the room. There was a swagger in her stride and sway to her hips that, in a guy, the move and attitude would have been a major turnoff. However, with Nicole, it was anything but and made her more than live up to her surname.

“Haught… Of course,” she smiled wryly before shaking her head, freeing herself from her thoughts to follow Nicole across the room ready for another round of research. Working shoulder to shoulder with a woman that had seen more history than the town of Purgatory had to offer was enticing and thrilling for so many reasons.

**********

Jeremy was struggling to keep even one eye half-open by the time he relented and gave in to their urging to quit for the night… Or actually, the day, he realised as he caught a glance of his watch and made out the numbers swimming and dancing in a blurred hazy that told him he was close to passing out, face down on the ground, Sims-style if he wasn’t careful.

Waverly directed him towards the couch that he hadn’t even seen her making up into an enticing looking bed but he refused to allow his body to give in until he had some assurances from Nicole.

“I promise not to eat you while you sleep,” Nicole assured Jeremy with the solemnity the man seemed to be looking for instead of the dismissive eye roll he deserved and she wanted to give.

“Are you going to make the same promise to Waverly?”

“Lord, I hope not.”

“Waves!” Spluttering and laughing nervously, a rising blush heating her entire body, Nicole pushed Waverly before her up the stairs. “Night, Jeremy… Erm, or morning… Whatever!”

Jeremy chuckled as Waverly poked her head back into view to throw him a grin and a wink before Nicole rushed her out of sight again. He had to admit, he hadn’t expected to like any vampire _ever_. Everything he had read from the BBD archives and learned from watching Wynonna and the others at work had convinced him of that.

However, Nicole had definitely grown on him… not as much as she had Waverly, but he did like her when she wasn’t snapping at his neck like a rabid beast or trying to scare him.

Which were things he probably shouldn’t dwell on if he was going to get any more sleep in.

But…

As tired as he was…

Sleep could wait until after he had at least sent a message for Robin, his tenth since getting there. But, this one was for him to find when he awoke. At least, that was the plan but, no sooner had he sent it, and his phone lit up, the screen filling with his favourite picture of his boyfriend’s smiling face, as he called him.

“Robin. Hey,” he smiled, warmth filling him as Robin’s sleep roughened face filled the screen. His usually clean-shaven jaw was speckled with bristles that lent him a slightly roguish air that made his fingers itch with the urge to feel it for himself. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” he tried to apologise as Robin tried to cover a yawn but it was brushed aside by a sleepy smile and a wave of a hand.

“Did you really think I would let you just get away with a text, Jer?” Robin asked softly.

“I guess not,” Jeremy grinned happily. “So, do you want to know what she’s like?”

“Do you mean the vampire Waverly was raving about for months? The one that you almost had a panic attack getting the blood for? That she?”

“Mhm,” Jeremy rolled his eyes fondly at Robin’s gentle teasing as he turned out most of the lights in the room and climbed under the mountain of covers Waverly had placed on the couch. Above him, he could hear their light tread upon the ancient floorboards as the couple moved around.

“Of course I want to hear about her… But, eventually. I called for you, Jer. Just you.”

**********

Nicole leaned her shoulder against the doorjamb, watching from afar as Waverly pulled back the covers on what _seemed_ like a big bed until they were lying in it together. Then she became all too aware of every movement, every breath, and every heartbeat of the young woman it belonged to.

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance you will let me just sleep in the chair this time?”

Even though she couldn’t see it, Nicole swore she could hear the sharp rise of Waverly’s brow but before she got to see it, Waverly carefully placed Calamity Jane on the bed and stroked a hand down the kitten’s body, teasing an arch and thunderous purr from her even as she slept on.

And then she turned smartly on her heel, giving her the full weight of a scathing eyebrow that had Nicole lifting her hands placatingly and carefully hiding a smile as Waverly marched across the room to stand before her. Their height difference made it that Waverly had to tip her head back to stare her down but, she managed it quite effectively and also adorably.

“What do _you_ think?”

There were many things that Nicole was thinking right then: cute and adorable; sexy as sin, being at the top; as well as several others that were likely to have Waverly using her bond to toss her through the window and into a snowbank.

What she couldn’t think of while under Waverly’s beautiful, hazel-eyed attention, was all the perfectly good reasons as to why she should sleep on the hard chair instead of at Waverly’s side in the bed… a place she was finding more and more that she wanted to remain.

“I think I’ll get ready for bed.”

And there Nicole froze.

Every other time they had reached that point, she had been fuelled by hunger, anger and close to her body shutting down with the dawn rising. That night though, there were still several hours left before she had to sleep and she was all too aware of her growing desire for Waverly.

“I, erm— I’ll go use the bathroom first!”

Nicole was left blinking at the afterimage burnt into her mind as a Waverly snatched up her nightclothes and rushed out of the bedroom. The bathroom door clicking too almost before Nicole could register she had gone. Minutes later, Nicole was changed and still smiling at the memory of the flags of colour riding high across Waverly’s cheeks.

Drawn by the need to be near her, and the unwillingness to lay in the bed like some blushing bride, Nicole made her way to the bathroom and slid to the floor with her back against the door.

“Nicole?”

Waverly’s voice was a softly hesitant, hopeful whisper that reached her through the wood she leaned against.

“I’m here.”

“I’m glad.”

Nicole could hear it in her voice and leaned into it the happiness, her eyes drifting shut as she tracked Waverly’s movements around the bathroom as she got ready for bed. It was a strangely familiar and comforting routine given that they barely knew each other but then, it was broken by the sound of fabric catching and an _actual_ curse word leaving Waverly’s mouth.

“Crap!”

“Waves?” Nicole leapt to her feet at Waverly’s urgent whisper and pressed her hands to the door. Confusion crinkled her brow but she didn’t attempt to open the door as Waverly didn’t sound like she was in pain or distress.

“Erm, Nicole! A- erm, could you…?”

Nicole pressed her ear to the door. She dropped a hand to the handle but didn’t turn it. “Are you okay?”

“I need a little help.”

“I’m coming in.”

Turning the handle, Nicole pushed open the door and froze at the sight that awaited her. Six-hundred years roaming the earth, doing all she had done, seeing all that she had, and suddenly she didn’t know the best place to look because of a modestly cut, but enticing, lacy bra.

A bra she was seeing because Waverly had somehow managed to become entangled with the fabric of her almost skin-tight top while taking it off, effectively trapping her arms above her head.

“Nicole!”

Leaping into action, Nicole gently steadied Waverly as she staggered and bumped into the sink. “Okay,” she chuckled lightly, “I got you.” Working quickly but carefully, she untangled Waverly’s top from where it had become caught in her hair and earring and lifted it up and off, leaving Waverly standing there in that still modestly cut but even more enticing lacy bra.

That Waverly was beautiful was not something that should have startled Nicole. She had known that she was from the moment she had seen her in Shorty’s and had spent nights since then, sleep entwined with her wearing what was essentially far less. But, there was something charged about that moment. A tension thickening the air between them that had Nicole feeling like a teenager suffering from their first crush ever.

And, Waverly wasn’t helping Nicole’s suddenly jittery nerves with how her eyes had grown dark and smoky, her lashes fluttering as her gaze kept dropping hungrily to her lips.

“Waves—”

A query, a protest… whatever it was that was about to be spoken was wiped from Nicole’s mind, swallowed by the urgent heat of Waverly’s kiss as she surged up and into her. Waverly’s hands grasped for her top… her shoulder… fingers tangling in fabric before finding their home, one along her jaw, the other at the back of her neck where they burrowed and scratched amongst the hair there.

Nicole’s back hit the cold, hard tiles of the wall with a resounding thud but the moan she released into Waverly’s mouth was one of pure, almost desperate pleasure and longing. Her hands swept down across the bare, exposed skin of Waverly’s waist to the delightful swell of her hips. Waverly moaned into her as she tightened her hold. A gasp leaping through Nicole’s body as she tugged Waverly against her.

Scraps of fabric were all that stood between bodies pressed hip to hip, breast to breast. It was simultaneously too much and not enough.

Panting raggedly, Nicole restrained herself and Waverly’s fingers as they started pulling on the hem of her top in an effort to yank it over her head.

“Wait. Waverly, wait.”

A thick moan left her as Waverly’s wickedly nimble mouth teased across her clavicle. Her moan turning to a whimper as her teeth closed around it just enough to have lightning streaking through Nicole’s body, setting off sparks at the base of her skull and pooling and dripping down between her thighs.

“Waves!” She moaned thickly, brokenly.

Wrapping her fingers in the soft, thick length of light brunette hair, Nicole eased Waverly’s head away from her but all she managed was to divert her attention to the line of her neck and her mouth was suddenly there, her jaw working as she sucked and licked along the pulse she trapped between her teeth.

Waverly moaned throatily as Nicole tightening her grip and pulled once more, easing her head back and exposing the line of her neck to her gaze. Fluttering open her eyes, Waverly felt her heart rabbit and thud against the cage of her ribs as she caught sight of Nicole’s fangs flashing with wicked intent. The danger was there but the brush of them against the delicate skin of her pulse was as light as a feather, softer than the hot wash of breath that was panted across her skin, and the restrained press of lips that lingered there before Nicole pulled away.

“Waves, we need to stop,” Nicole panted out raggedly.

“I don’t want to.” Trying to prove her point, Waverly attempted to wiggle closer but Nicole held her annoyingly firmly with no difficulty at all.

“We don’t know each other.”

“You were happy enough to sleep with me that first night,” Waverly pointed out, her eyebrow arching accusingly. “What’s changed?”

“I know you now— enough to know that I want to know more,” she quickly added before Waverly could use her words against her. “I know you enough to know that I— might want more than just a quick roll in the hay with you,” she admitted with a soft, hesitant smile.

Waverly went lax in her restraining hands, a smile tilting the generous curve of her lips and lighting her face as she looked up at her with a gaze akin to wonder.

“You deserve more than that and you are the first person in a long time that I have wanted more with. And, we both deserve to know that when… _if_… anything happens between us, that this attraction isn’t born from this spell.”

“It _is_ more.” Hands sliding up to loop around the back of Nicole’s neck, Waverly swayed in Nicole’s arms. Her eyes were soft and gentle, their rich, earthy tones holding a weight and innocence despite the years they had seen that settled comfortably over Waverly. “I— I really _like_ you, Nicole.”

“And I really like you, Waverly,” Nicole echoed, her heart swelling a ridiculous amount with the word Waverly might one day speak in the place of ‘like’ even as the words ‘too soon, much too soon’ echoed weakly around her mind.

Their lips found each other again as they moved as one, each seeking out the other in a slow, searching kiss that teased and promised more if they would just give in and let the moment consume them.

They resisted. Somehow. But, they allowed the moment to guide them hand in hand back to the bedroom and the bed looming suddenly large and imposing, waiting for them.

As Nicole turned off the lights, taking more time than the task needed, Waverly finished getting ready for bed. There was an intimacy about the moment that had her blushing and ducking her head as she stole glances of Nicole, even though she had been more than ready to beg Nicole to take her on the bathroom floor or up against the wall just minutes before.

“I feel like a blushing bride on her honeymoon,” she laughed as Nicole finally turned to face her and revealed the blush of colour prettily staining her cheeks.

“Are you proposing to me, Waverly Earp?” Nicole’s smirk dropped along with her jaw as Waverly suddenly dropped to a knee before her.

“Will you, Nicole Rayleigh Haught, be my snuggle buddy in bed tonight?”

“Hmm, tempting but I’m not sure… It is taking U-Hauling to a whole new level and, you have a terrible habit of stealing the covers, Waverly Earp,” Nicole teased as she reached out a hand and pulled Waverly back to her feet.

“If we stay close, we can share,” Waverly pointed out daringly. Not that where they started off in the bed made any difference as they always seemed to come together instinctively anyway. A point that was proved almost instantly as they slid beneath the cool covers and turned to face each other.

The only one in the bed that seemed to want space between them was Calamity who stirred just long enough to march up the bed and wiggled into the gap between them, her tiny paws and needlelike claws facing Nicole.

Stifling a giggle and the yawn that followed on its heels behind her hand, Waverly snuggled under the covers until she was peering at Nicole through a haze of sleep and fabric. Reaching out beneath them, she sought for and found her hand and twined their fingers together. She could see the dawn pulling Nicole under, her eyes shuttering until the sweep of thick lashes blocked the view of her eyes.

“Nicole?”

“Hmm?”

Waverly smiled at her sleep-roughened hum vibrated through the air between them and the mattress beneath her.

“What was the Late Middle Ages version of U-Hauling in Scotland called anyway?”

Nicole cracked open an eye. “Not somethin’ that came up in yer stalkin’?”

“Research. And, no. So, what was it called?” She wiggled closer, her feet sliding and wedging between Nicole’s until their legs were entangled as much as their fingers.

“Nope. Not gonna tell ya. You’ll just have to ‘research’ some more.”

Soft lips brushed across the back of her hand, the moment barely felt before Nicole’s eyes were closed once more and her breathing slowed and evened out to a steady puff across her knuckles. Leaning closer, Waverly pressed her lips to the corner of Nicole’s mouth. She thought she felt Nicole’s lips curve beneath hers but as she pulled back, there was no sign that Nicole was anything other than deeply asleep.

And with a smile of contentment, and the lure of more research, Waverly soon joined her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN's
> 
> 1\. This chapter was not supposed to happen! But... here it is anyway because my muses are soft and squishy and wanted to snuggle in bed and get Waverly stuck in her bra :D  
2\. Jeremy was only supposed to be a brief addition... in fact, in my original thoughts he wasn't going to be in it, it was supposed to be Gretta doing the blood delivery But, after posting the last chapter my muses suddenly blurted out UNKILLABLE GAY SQUAD! Therefore, the team may ride to the rescue again... hopefully without blowing themselves up.  
3\. I swear to God, I will drag my muses out of bed and make them get the plot moving for the next chapter!


	7. Chapter 7

Nicole struggled towards wakefulness, the distraught sobs and whimpers pulling her onwards, growing louder and closer, despite the weight of the sun holding her captive until she burst forth, her body spasming upright like it had been shocked as she reached out with one name on her mind and bursting from her lips.

“Waverly!?”

“Don’t leave me! Don’t leave. Please! Don’t!!”

Nicole acted instinctively, her mind and body feeling woefully slow and sluggish as she tried to gently contain Waverly’s arms and legs as she thrashed about in obvious distress under the many covers piled on top of her. Just how many blankets did one woman need anyway?

“Waverly—”

A yank upon the bond between them pulled her closer, throwing her off balance but, rather than resist, Nicole used it as a guide to find Waverly’s hand. Blunt nails clawed and scrabbled at her flesh, raising welts as they raked down her forearm and dug into the back of her hand hard enough to nearly draw blood.

“I’m right here.”

“Don’t— don’t leave! I can’t— Please!!”

Nicole stripped back the blankets tangled around Waverly’s thrashing body and sacrificed herself to Waverly’s desperation. Nails clawed at her back, digging in deep as Nicole pressed herself as close as she could. Time lost all meaning, minutes and hours passing as Waverly’s tears dampened her cheek while she whispered soothingly her promise to stay, over and over, against the delicate shell of Waverly’s ear until she started to relax. To listen and believe.

“I got you, Waves.”

“Everyone always leaves me—”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Nicole lulled, her heart cracking as Waverly sniffled and sobbed brokenly against her shoulder.

“Don’ go. Please, don’t go.”

“I’m right here.” Lifting her head a fraction, Nicole smiled softly, reassuringly as Waverly blinked up at her, her eyes losing some of the pain that had haunted her dreams. Gently, slowly, Nicole brushed away Waverly’s tears with her thumbs, chasing away the last of Waverly’s nightmare with her touch. Her body released the last of its tension, shuddering beneath her as she released a trembling breath. Her hands remained locked around her though, her fingers pressing deep into the muscles of Nicole’s shoulders, her strong legs tangled with her own in a way that suddenly seemed too familiar and intimate now Waverly was more aware.

“Erm—” Nicole tried to shift away without drawing attention to where she was and how they were touching but Waverly tightened her grip. “Waves—”

“Don’t— don’t leave me.”

“I’m not. Just trying not to squash you,” Nicole laughed lightly, her chuckle sounding just a little bit too strained to her own ears.

“Maybe I want to be squashed by you, Nicole.”

Waverly’s voice had dropped to a rough velvet purr that stroked right through Nicole and turned her insides to liquid heat.

“Waverly—”

“I want you, Nicole. Please, touch me. I need to feel _something_… I need _you_.”

Nicole’s fingers twitched and spasmed against the mattress, curling into the rumpled sheets either side of Waverly’s head with the need to do exactly that. But, like a splash of ice-cold water, she could hear the heart-wrenching plea hidden within Waverly’s words begging her not to leave and it drowned out the heat of Waverly’s lips as they pressed desperate kisses over her face and even the fire she could feel burning between Waverly’s thighs as she bucked up, pressing her core against her abdomen.

“Waverly. Waverly, wait.” Nicole gently restrained her, holding her closer to lessen the sting of her rejection.

“Please! Please!”

“Listen to me, Waverly. There is nothing I would like more than to take you up on your offer—” she broke off to regain control of the tiny spitfire beneath her. “Not like this, Waverly.”

“Why?”

“If— When we make love,” she amended, stilling Waverly with her husky promise. “I don’t want it to be clouded with any regret the next day.”

“You want me?”

“Waverly, your little spell might have drawn me to Purgatory but, one look at you and I would have wanted you with or without it.” And she had the feeling that admitting as much would only make Waverly more insufferable later but, she needed to hear the truth.

“I won’t regret it in the morning,” Waverly lulled enticingly, her fingers dancing along Nicole’s spine, dipping towards the swell of her ass.

“Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. I fear that I would… The sun is still shining,” she pointed out gently. “If I started anything now I fear I would leave you very unsatisfied.”

“Oh… Oh! Wait… how are you awake right now?” Waverly gazed up at Nicole in amazement as she realised the time. She knew that vampires could, if needed, get around during the day if they didn’t mind getting a little bit toasty but to wake like that from such a deep sleep at the height of the day took a lot of effort and a life-or-death kind of threat.

“You were in pain, Waverly. I heard you. How could I not respond?” But, now Waverly’s anguish was settled for the moment, the fear allayed if not the cause of it, Nicole could feel her body starting to crash again, the weight of the sun pushing her down towards the depths of sleep.

Waverly gently pushed Nicole’s hair back from her forehead, watching as her brown eyes grew glazed with tiredness despite her best efforts to hold it at bay.

“I’m sorry I—”

“No. Don’t you dare apologise, Waverly. There’s no need to.”

Even with her soft assurance, Waverly still felt the need to at least explain the fears crowding the edges of her mind. “I was just so scared you were going to abandon me like everyone else,” she sniffled wetly.

“Waves, with all your stalking—”

“Research.”

“Stalking,” Nicole quickly kissed the tip of her nose to still any further protests. “Did anything you found say that I was the kind to leave?”

“No. It was one of the things I love— like! Liked about you,” she blustered.

“In that case, believe your skills as a stalker, Waverly Earp. As long as you need me, I will be by your side. Right now though, I have a favour to ask.”

“Oh?” Waverly bit her lip nervously, hoping that Nicole wasn’t going to ask for her freedom again. She really didn’t want to refuse her her favour.

“Lie down with me, hold me just as tightly as you need to and let me hold your fears at bay.”

Waverly melted, her heart aching sweetly at Nicole’s soft, sleep-heavy request. She shuffled around in Nicole’s arms, pulling the covers back over them both. Calamity climbed back onto the bed from where she had run to for cover and settled above their heads on the pillow with a contented purr that was ten times bigger than her tiny body.

“’s like sleepin’ with a motorboat in my ear,” Nicole grumbled half-heartedly. “Come ‘ere.”

Waverly snuggled in closer, resting her head against Nicole’s chest as her arms wrapped tenderly around her. Everything she had read and heard about vampires had painted a picture of death and coldness while they ‘slept’ or ‘died’ according to some reports. The reality, Waverly had found with Nicole, was far different, more so then as even though the sun dragged her down deeper than before, punishing her for waking, she stayed gentle, her body supporting and comforting, her fingers tracing soothing patterns upon her shoulders and back long after she had fallen asleep.

Lifting her head, Waverly caressed the strong line of Nicole’s jaw, using her touch to guide her as she pressed a lingering kiss to the corner of the vampire's soft lips. “I wouldn’t have regretted a moment,” she whispered against her.

She felt sure that she felt Nicole’s lips twitch and curve beneath her own but the sun’s hold was too great for more so Waverly settled back against her, letting the slow, lulling rhythm of her heart guide her towards a sleep filled with more pleasant dreams.

**********

Nicole’s instincts told her that several hours had passed since Waverly’s nightmare had released its hold enough for her to fall back asleep. Enough time for the sun’s hold to have lessened but not enough time for her to appreciate the interruption to her sleep coming in the form of Jeremy’s excited voice as he talked on his phone with someone. With her abilities, he might as well have been talking in the room with her and frankly, she was rethinking her promise not to use him like a juice box.

Tightening her grip on the woman in her arms, she screwed her eyes tightly shut and tried to pretend nothing was disturbing her any more.

“You’re growling,” Waverly chuckled into the sweetly scented curve of Nicole’s neck.

“Am not.”

“Are too,” Waverly stated. Propping herself up on her elbows, she giggled lightly at the pout on Nicole’s lips. A pout that she just had to bestow a kiss upon. “Thank you for— you know,” she ducked her head, unwilling to even put a name on her fears.

“Hey,” curling a finger beneath Waverly’s chin, Nicole gently urged her eyes to rise. “If you need to talk about it—”

“It’s nothing,” she tried to evade Nicole’s gaze but finally relented when she realised there was no judgement there. “Everyone leaves me, Nicole. My mama left when I was four. My pa was murdered after an attack on the homestead when I was six,” she drew in a ragged breath, finding the strength to continue in Nicole’s steadying touch. “That same night, we thought Willa, our big sister had died too. She was dragged away and all they found was a bloodied piece of the nightgown she’d been wearing.”

“She survived?”

“That depends on what you call surviving,” Waverly shorted. “They tortured her, Nicole. Broke her mind until there was nothing left of the sister we had grown up with. And then they turned her so they could keep torturing her.”

“Oh. I am so, so sorry, Waverly.”

Nicole knew all too well how a tragic story like that ended. It had once been a popular punishment against mortal enemies back in the dark ages of mankind and vampires alike but it had finally died out… unfortunately, because it risked exposing vampires if a wild, broken-minded vampire got out and slaughtered people, and not because of the cruelty used in breaking them.

No, in some quarters, cruelty in all forms simply meant strength whereas love was a weakness to be exploited.

“Wynonna found her and— and—” her nails bit into her palms, blood filling the crescent moons they cut into her flesh.

Nicole gently uncurled Waverly’s fingers, saving Waverly’s flesh further abuse by offering up her own for punishment. Hazel eyes glistening with pain lifted, growing wide and soft as Nicole pressed light kisses across her knuckles without a care for the sweet scent of coppery blood teasing her nose.

“She killed her before I could see her. Before I could talk to her.”

“Your sister did the right thing, Waverly. She did the _only_ thing she could. I think you know in your heart but, your Willa was lost the night she was taken. Mourn that Willa. Remember her as she was then and not what her broken shell was forced to become.”

“It’s hard.”

“I know, baby. I know. You trust me though, right? Then trust me. What your sister released, that was not Willa.”

“Released?” Waverly felt it was a strange word, surely Nicole would think it more as murder?

“When that happens, it is a release. A vampire with a mind broken like that is more animal than vampire or human. There is no restraint or care for anything. There are no memories of what they were, the people they knew or loved when they were alive. There is nothing but an insatiable hunger for blood.”

“Isn’t that what all vampires think about?” Waverly bit out, the pain of losing her sister adding a sharpness to her voice she knew that Nicole didn’t deserve.

Rather than answer with words, Nicole turned Waverly’s hands over so she could see the blood seeping from her palms. “Blood can drive me just as much as hunger can for anything, Waverly. But, even at my worst… even on the verge of death, I would still have the mind to choose between letting death take me or becoming death and taking a life.”

“I think I always knew that of you and it was rude to suggest otherwise,” Waverly ducked her head in shame. “I’m sorry,” she glanced up shyly, offering a small smile.

“I always find myself telling you more than I should,” Nicole huffed slightly after several minutes as the realisation that, once again, she had undermined any reputation she might have had by being honest with the little witch sank in. “Just because I’m not likely to rip out your delicate throat, don’t take that to mean I’m not dangerous or another vampire won’t,” she warned gruffly as she felt the bounce returning to Waverly’s demeanour.

“Don’t worry, I would believe that of another vampire. You on the other hand—”

Nicole groaned and pulled a spare pillow over her head at Waverly’s unrepentant, cheeky grin that told her clearly that her attempt to create some distance and regain the high ground, if she’d ever had it, had failed.

Plucked by determined fingers, the pillow left her face, leaving Nicole gazing up into hazel-eyes smiling at her even though Nicole knew she didn’t deserve it.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” Propping herself up on her elbows, Nicole tilted her head in confusion.

“Helping me earlier. Holding me,” Waverly’s voice softened as her fingers plucked at the edge of her sleep shorts. “Being here for me. For not taking advantage of me,” she blushed furiously. “But,” she rushed on before she lost her nerve, “for the record, I wouldn’t have regretted one moment of it if we had made love. I’m going to go grab a shower… you could join me if you want?”

Nicole was left blinking at the space where Waverly had been as, after stunning her with _that_ little titbit, she slipped off the bed and out of the room with a coquettish giggle that lingered almost as long as the warmth of her fingers that had teased across her jaw.

_“You, my dear, are an idiot.”_

“I’m well aware, Shae,” Nicole smiled softly at the ghostly memory of her first love crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed beside her with a grace and poise Nicole had witnessed many times over the years.

_“Why do you fight against yourself so much? She likes you despite your best efforts to change her mind by painting yourself in the worst possible light… while doing good.”_

“Let's see…” Nicole ignored the last part and the chuckle that had followed it. “She is an Earp. Her family is the sworn enemy of our kind…” Nicole pointed out, her scoffing tone earning her nothing but an arching eyebrow and a quirk of full lips.

_“She is _not_ her family, as well you know. Come on, next excuse?”_

Nicole rolled her eyes as Shae clicked her fingers together like she was signalling a waiter for service. She could think of a million reasons, or excuses as Shae called them, all perfectly reasonable to create as much distance as possible between herself and Waverly. But, she knew that they would be shot down by her own mind that continued to want what she shouldn’t, and the Shae that lived there quicker than she could list them.

All but one.

“I don't want to see her die because of me, Shae! I— I can’t lose anyone else!” Nicole admitted, her breath hitching.

_“There we are. The truth at last. I thought it would take you longer to admit it, my stubborn love. There _is_ an answer you seem to have ignored though.”_

“Oh?”

_“Help her to live.”_

Nicole froze, wondering if she was shooting down her own arguments or if Shae was more real than she had imagined.

_“Live, Nicole.”_

Closing her eyes against the tears welling within them, Nicole leaned into the memory of Shae’s hand cupping her cheek.

_“Whether you believe this is me or your memory do you really believe I would want anything less for you after I risked all to bring you back to life that day? You gave me a love and life like I’d never known before, Nicole. Stop locking your beautiful heart away and live.”_

“I miss you.”

_“I miss you too. Now go… Take a chance on life, Nicole… Preferably before that shower runs cold.”_

Nicole opened her eyes as Shae’s laughter faded away back into the past and the corners of her mind, leaving behind the sound of water splashing over Waverly’s body in an enticing tattoo of sound.

Even with the doors closed, she could smell the body wash Waverly used, caught in the heat of her body and the steam filling the bathroom. It was Waverly’s beautiful voice rising in song that called Nicole from her place on the bed and moved her feet towards the door.

_“Live.”_

The whine of an engine stilled Nicole’s hand before it brushed against the handle of the bathroom door. Dropping her head, she sighed in annoyance.

For a place so cut off by the storm, it was doing very little to stop people from visiting.

Nicole quickly moved back into the bedroom and eased aside the heavy curtain and looked out over the top of the rickety barn to the open land and the trees beyond. Through the cover of snow and the falling darkness, she could see the blood coursing through the veins of all the tiny creatures that called the land their home hiding in their burrows and nests from the cold and the predator moving amongst them.

The white skimobile moved slowly, cautiously through the trees and out into the open, it’s progress slow as it kept to the edges of the bordered off fields instead of cutting across and taking a more direct approach. It stopped for a moment, its bulky clothed rider lifting his goggles and pulled down the mask covering the lower part of his face as he looked around and let out a breath that misted the air. Then, adjusting what looked to be a rifle of some kind strapped across his back, he pulled his goggles back into place and started the snowmobile moving again with a determined set to his body as he haunched forward over the handlebar.

Nicole knew the man wasn’t a vampire simply by the way the blood moved through his body but, that didn’t make his presence there any less dangerous to Waverly… or Jeremy, she tacked onto her thoughts belatedly as the young man bumbling his way around loudly the kitchen, singing some boyband pop song very out of tune as he did so.

Was that _One Direction_? She was thinking his blood would have been _very_ unpalatable if Waverly had let her try it.

With them both occupied, Nicole quietly opened the bedroom window and took the less obvious route out to avoid questions. Her bare feet sank into the pristine blanket of deep snow as she jumped down off the edge of the roof into a crouch. Her vision sharpened and teeth lengthened at the thrill of the hunt, her body bursting from her crouch into a run that took her around the edge of the barn out of sight of the homestead and the intruder heading towards it.

With a feral smile and a flash of teeth, she raced at full speed, her body a blur of motion that was too fast for him to register as anything other than _something._ But, by then, she was on him and it was too late.

With a simple tug on the back of his jacket, his body flew off the snowmobile as though catapulted and tumbled and skidded through the snow, his body gouging a deep path in the snow.

Nicole was on him before his body stopped rolling, ripping at the straps holding his weapon across his back. It gave beneath her strength as quickly and easily as wet tissue and the gun soared, arching through the air at the end of a flick of her wrist.

His eyes widened further beneath his fogged up goggles as Nicole tangled her hand in the front of his jacket and lifted him up off the ground. Tilting his head to the side, she let the horror of her fangs and the blood-red that had bled into her eyes sink in as she exposed the length of his throat ready for her bite.

“No! Bad vampire!”

“Nicole!”

“Please don’t eat my boyfriend! Please don’t eat my boyfriend!”

“Nicole,” finally getting close enough, Waverly gently placed her hand on Nicole’s tense forearm. “Put him down.”

“Boyfriend?”

Nicole sighed as the man in her grasp nodded so furiously she was worried he would get whiplash. Relaxing her hold, letting the tension knotting her muscles from her hunt go, she put him back on his feet and held him steady while he staggered in the snow.

“You must be Nicole. I’m Robin.”

Nicole blinked at the trembling gloved hand raised between them and then gave it a quick shake. Waverly’s hand gave a soothing squeeze upon her forearm.

“I thought you were here to try and kill Waverly, erm, them. What with the gun and all.”

“Gun? Oh! No,” Robin chuckled shakily. “Those are my hiking sticks,” he explained, gesturing to where they were sticking out of the snow some fifty-feet away. His eyes widened. “Woah, that was some toss! Glad that wasn’t…” his voice trailed away as his eyes tracked back along the gouge in the snow created by his body.

“Nicole—”

“What?” Nicole cut Waverly off before she could chastise her. “He came riding out of the trees and was acting weird— Following the fence like he was trying to stay hidden— I was worried.”

“That’s sweet.”

Heat bloomed across Nicole’s cold cheek from where Waverly raised up on her toes and pressed a lingering kiss there.

“I got turned around in the woods,” Robin explained sheepishly. “Thought I was going to be lost forever.”

Eyebrow lifting, Nicole glanced at Robin’s orange jacket and the patch she could now see stitched to it that marked him as a Forest Ranger. “You got lost?”

“It was the only job available when I came back to look after my dad,” he explained with a sheepish shrug. “Jazz history is my wheelhouse but there was no call for it here. The only plant I know really well is potatoes, and that is more cooking than growing. I find them very a-_peel_-ing," he chuckled nervously, knowing he was rambling through his shock but unable to stop himself. "They were desperate though and Sheriff Nedley is good enough to come and rescue me when I need it.”

“That is— You’re freezing!” Nicole could have kicked herself for not realising sooner as she caught the violent shiver that shook Waverly’s body. She could feel the cold but Nicole was pretty much immune to its effects even when dressed in little more than a thin pair of booty shorts and a tank top standing nearly up to her knees in snow. Waverly, on the other hand, liked to be buried under a mound of blankets all night, a fluffy white jacket that made her look like an angel and a pair of boots, both items were pretty but were still inappropriate against the weather… especially as her hair was still dripping from her shower.

Without waiting, Nicole scooped Waverly up in her arm, holding her high against her chest as she strode through the snow with a surety and pace beyond Jeremy and Robin as they trailed in their wake.

“I’m not going to complain, you’re wonderfully strong, but you didn’t have to do that,” Waverly smiled as Nicole carefully placed her down on their bed and bundled her up in blankets until she was securely cocooned before rushing off with a barely audible mumble only to return moments later with a fluffy towel in hand.

Any protest she could have made, any question or comment was lost in a moan of pleasure that tumbled out of her mouth as Nicole settled on the bed behind her, the strength of her body supporting her as Waverly sagged bonelessly into her touch as she dried her hair.

Apparently, her hair was an erogenous zone now… That was unexpected. As was how sensual a sight it was to watch their reflection in the mirror as Nicole diligently tended to her.

“I thought— Hoped you would have joined me in the shower.”

Nicole slowed her ministrations. “I was going to,” she admitted, the echo of Shae telling her to live still ringing in her mind, urging to take a step closer rather than run away as she was want to. “Just a couple more seconds and I would have been eating you in a _far_ more _pleasurable_ way instead of trying to eat your friend.”

Capturing Waverly’s eyes in the mirror, she dipped her head, caressing her pulse with her breath and the ghostly brush of her lips. A part of her, that unsure part that was looking for a reason to distance herself, expected to see revulsion or fear at her actions but Waverly’s eyes grew so dark they were almost black as her pupils widened in desire. If that wasn’t indication enough that Waverly truly wanted her, the way her fingers tangled in her hair, pulling her closer until her teeth pressed against her.

“We could go take that shower together now?” Waverly purred throatily in invitation.

“That sounds— like an awesome plan if you didn’t have guests,” Nicole finished on a sigh, her head dropping to Waverly’s shoulder as thumps and noises that sounded like every piece of furniture in the homestead being moved reached their ears.

“I should have let you snack on them,” Waverly grumbled.

“Come on,” Nicole laughed lightly at her pout. Sliding off the bed, she held out her hand and tugged Waverly to her feet and into her arms, blankets and all. “Let's work on getting your sister back home safely and then… we’ll do all that.”

“All that?” Leaning back in Nicole’s embrace, Waverly slid her hands up, her palms brushing the swell of her breasts before looping over Nicole’s strong shoulders, her fingers playing in the soft strands of baby-fine hair at the nape of her neck.

“Anything. You. Want. Waverly Earp.” She punctuated each word with a kiss that lingered longer and longer each time their lips brushed until their mouths stayed softly clinging as their bodies swayed together.

“Food is ready when you are! Robin got some more blood from the hospital too if you need a top-up! Not that she deserves it after attacking you.”

“Play nice, Jer. She thought she was protecting you. Kind of cool to be thought of as a threat by an actual vampire.”

“Only thing you’re a threat to is my heart… and my waistline with your cooking. Is there nothing you can’t so with a potato?”

“I think I’m going to throw up,” Nicole whined against Waverly’s shoulder.

“Be nice,” Waverly giggled, patting Nicole on the head. She wasn’t sure what had happened after she had left the room to shower but, she liked Nicole like this. She seemed lighter, softer, more at ease and accessible and less like a cat, purring one second and spitting with anger and clawing the next.

Tugging on the bond tying them together, she pulled Nicole’s hand into her own. Nicole’s fingers moved first, entwining with hers with a gentle surety, linking them together on a different, more intimate level.

“Come on, lets get dressed and get things moving.”

“For Wynonna.”

Nicole’s heart knew whatever happened, she was doing everything for one reason, for one person, and that was Waverly. But, she knew what Waverly needed to hear… “For Wynonna. Eww, might want to take our time, I can hear some hot and heavy petting going on over the coffee pot,” she grimaced.

“Thin walls, guys! Thin walls!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN - Swear to god, there was going to be more story progression and action from the expanded ranks of the unkillable gay squad this chapter but the heat just sapped my will to type and went 'nope, chapter ends right here'.
> 
> Thanks to a good talking to from Shae, I think that will be the last of Nicole being a grumbly, emo vampire... with Waverly anyway.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter so soon O.O I shocked myself!

Nicole didn’t like snowmobiles one little bit. In all her years wandering the world, she’d had nothing to do with them before. There wasn’t much call for them in Vegas and the last time she had been in any significant amount of snow it had when significant expanses of snow were crossable only on skies, or on sledges drawn by dogs or horses.

And, if memory served her, that last time, she had spent more time keeping warm in front of the fire in the ski lodge in an affluent resort in the Alps and viewing the snow through a picture window, than venturing out into it.

Yes, that had been a pleasant way to enjoy the snow. Riding on the back of a snowmobile, clinging to Waverly while the youngest, witchiest, Earp blasted them at high speed across the evening-lit landscape through every snowbank she could find until she was coated in the cursed white stuff, and could even feel a steady drip of it melting down the back of her neck and spine.

It did not escape her notice one little bit that Robin, who was riding behind Jeremy on the other snowmobile, had barely got a flake on him.

“Waverly, how about you let me—” Nicole’s offer to take control so she could escape the icy abuse was stolen by the wind created by Waverly’s wild speed, the whing roar of the engine and cut off by a mouthful of snow that left her spluttering as Waverly hit another snowbank with a laugh that was far too joyful and knowing.

Waverly was having too much fun at her expense… and Nicole didn’t mind as she knew that the other option for Waverly was probably tears or a mental breakdown with everything that had— was probably, maybe, happened to her sister all topped off with her nightmare of being left by everyone she knew.

Nicole had seen the fear come to life again, clouding Waverly’s beautiful eyes as they had looked at her imploringly, her fingers tangling with fierce desperation within the fabric of her sweater when both Jeremy and Robin had made what they had obviously thought was a gallant suggestion that Waverly should stay at the homestead where it was safe.

“Nicole—”

Nicole tangled their left hands together in a reassuring grasp. Heat flowed between them. She could still feel it even through the cold hours later. It had raced from their palms where they were tightly pressed together all the way to her heart. And with it had come the ghost of feelings she knew were Waverly’s. Her dreams. Her fears. Her wants and desires. A spark of something deeper and hotter as her hazel eyes had looked down at their hand before flitting back to her face.

“You boys ever watch _Jurassic Park_?”

“Erm, yes?”

Jeremy’s brows had beetled together, his feet shuffling as he had looked to his much taller and calmer boyfriend for guidance at the strange direction of her question.

“Then, to almost quote Laura Dern’s character: We can discuss sexism in survival situations when we get back.”

Jeremy had looked impressed at the quote and then his face had twisted into shame with the realisation that he had hurt his friend.

“If we find Wynonna tonight, I doubt very much that she is going to be at all friendly towards me.”

“True. She nearly broke my fingers one time for moving a box of doughnuts she’d put too close to an experiment I was working on.”

“Then, unless I am wrong, she is more likely to want to get out of wherever she is if Waverly is there while you two can help protect them with guns—”

“Actually,” Waverly had butted in. “That is more likely to be me too. You saw Robin, he gets lost in his own woods. And Jeremy… how many times did you fail your firearms test?”

“Technically, four times but the last one never really got going as the instructor made me jump before it could begin and I shot him. Don’t worry! He was wearing a vest.”

“And yet you are an agent?”

“My aim isn’t very good but my mind, that was, _is_, razor-sharp and useful to BBD so they kept me confined to the labs. Coming to Purgatory is the most I’ve been let out.”

Between Jeremy’s firearms training, Robin’s navigation skills, Wynonna’s reckless actions as the Earp heir, whatever the other two members of her team had got themselves into that kept them absent, and Waverly’s reckless witchery for calling her there… not to mention her recklessness where speed was concerned, Nicole was starting to think it was a miracle any of them were still alive.

She wasn’t sure what that said about her seeing as she was clinging to Waverly’s waist and was, quite literally, along for the ride.

The whine of the engine slowed, the trees flashing by becoming more defined instead of blurring into one as Waverly eased back on the speed. Nicole leaned closer for Waverly’s benefit. She could hear perfectly well from where she was but she knew from experience that even when people knew she was a vampire and what abilities came with that, they still tended to act around her as they would anyone else. And, in a situation like that, that would mean raising her voice.

Waverly seemed to remember better than most though and just leaned back against her, which gave Nicole a whole other level of problems to deal with, and turned her head only slightly, exposing the perfect line of her jaw and the start of her throat to Nicole’s gaze as she spoke.

“We’re about half a mile away from the Gardner place.”

“Okay,” Nicole cleared her throat of the tightness caused by her desire. “Pull on over so I can get a look at the place first.” She felt the stiffening on Waverly’s spine even though all the padding of her clothing and knew without asking what was on her you witch’s mind. “You can come with me,” she assured her with a gentle squeeze of her hands upon Waverly’s slender waist. “Those two, they stay with the skimobiles,” she added with a nod of her head to where Jeremy and Robin were following a little ways behind them still somehow making far more noise than they needed too.

“I can?”

Nicole pulled back, her heart skipping in her chest as Waverly turned her head more and the corners of their mouths brushed slightly. Her breath was hot as it caught on Nicole’s indrawn breath and filled every inch of her with warmth and the minty freshness of her toothpaste. Nicole barely resisted the urge to drag Waverly around and into her lap for a very dangerous but satisfying kiss and settled for nodding dumbly and then holding on for dear life as Waverly suddenly left the path they’d been following and took them into the trees.

“If I could find the cursed ground under all this snow I would kiss it,” Nicole grumbled as Waverly finally pulled the skimobile over under the cover of one of many towering pines in the area and turned off the engine, casting the land beneath the trees in darkness.

She looked down at her front, bewildered and marvelling at the amount of snow caked to her clothing even where she should have been protected by her closeness to Waverly’s body. While, she realised, Waverly was completely spotless with not even a clump or flake of snow on her ridiculously huge, knitted scarf.

“Did you cast some kind of a spell that stopped the snow sticking to you?” Nicole challenged with narrowed eyes.

She should have paid attention to the quick, complex patterns Waverly’s fingers were weaving in the air. Or, at the very least, she should have noted that Robin and Jeremy had gone quiet, looks of anticipation on their faces. But, Nicole didn’t do either of those things and was caught completely off guard by a snowball hitting her in the back of the head where there was no one to throw it.

Robin brushed at a lump of snow clinging to her hair, a look of barely contained humour twitching his lips. “No one wanted to go against Waverly in a snowball fight. The year I came out as gay was hell for me… apart from Waverly. The one highlight that year was seeing her dismantle of bullies one snowball at a time.”

“I would have done more. I should have done more,” Waverly sighed.

“You stood up for me when it mattered, Waves. There aren’t many from that school that could say the same.”

Nicole had no trouble imagining a young Waverly Earp; tiny amazon, fierce, caring, witch; Waverly Earp taking on the world for the right cause and not believing she was doing enough at the same time. After all, she had cast a spell to draw a vampire all the way from Vegas to Purgatory just because her sister was in trouble.

“You two stay here, try not to draw attention to yourselves,” she added as Jeremy started fishing bags of snacks out of his numerous pockets. “Let’s go,” she held out her hand, drawing Waverly closer as, without any hesitation, her gloved hand slipped into her grasp. “And, no more snowballs or I’ll tip you headfirst in a snowbank.”

Her threat, as weak as it was, was met with a grin from Waverly and a tug upon her hand and the bond between them, that urged her to follow in her wake.

They slipped through the trees, their hands linked, their shoulders and hips brushing together as they navigated the snowy landscape. Or, Waverly navigated and Nicole followed the sway of her hips and the smile she threw over her shoulder like a lure, like a lovestruck puppy.

Before long, the trees they were using for cover gave way abruptly to an expanse of open land covered in a thick, pristine blanket of snow that reflected the light from the moon like sunlight on water. The open land spread around the large, stately building that stood like a lonely monument to the wealth of the owners that Nicole could only assume was the Gardner place.

Well, lonely apart from the black, snowcovered party bus that was parked around the side of the house.

“The Gardners… kinda freaky are they?”

“More creepy than freaky. Especially when it comes to Tucker and Beth. Tucker… he’s a couple of years younger than me and the kind that flies drones over the dance studio in town and upskirts school girls given half a chance. Beth, we were in some of the same classes at school. She enables and defends him. And the town lets him get away from it because their parents' names are on a building thanks to some sizable donations before they passed. Not sure who that monstrosity could belong to though. Before she left I would have said it was more the speed of their elder sister, Mercedes. She had a wild streak that could give Wynonna grey hairs. Last I heard though, she’d started a realtor business.”

Dragging her eyes away from the too quiet edifice of the Gardner home and its bizarre addition of a party bus, Waverly watched Nicole looking at it instead. She was doing that otherworldly stillness again, her brown eyes fixed upon the building with a laser-like intensity that left no room for blinking or breathing but Waverly wasn’t bothered by it as it allowed her the opportunity to gaze upon the chiselled sharpness of her jawline and high cheekbones… as well as the hint of dimples popping as she caught her staring.

“Is it safe to move closer?”

“Oh, absolutely not.” Nicole directed her gaze to where the snow had slipped down to reveal the custom black plate with bright-red lettering on the party bus.

BLDSCKRS

“Well, that’s not very subtle.”

“If it’s who I think it is… they never are,” Nicole smiled grimly as the double doors on the front of the Gardner house swung open in clear and ominous invitation. “Waverly—”

“No,” Waverly whispered back firmly, crossing her arms across her chest as best as she could with the layers of her clothing getting in the way. She knew full well what the too noble vampire was about to suggest, “I won’t let you go in there alone.”

“Didn’t think you would somehow,” Nicole smiled softly. Running her hands up Waverly’s tense arms and shoulders, she gently cupped her delicate, determined face between her hands. “Just, don’t let any of them touch you, okay? Not even a little bit. And if I say run, you get the hell out of here and don’t look back. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Waverly nodded into the gentle restraint of Nicole’s hands. She understood alright. However, that didn’t mean she would follow Nicole’s instructions, not if that meant losing her. But, she understood.

“Shall we?” Nicole held out her hand again, needing the contact between them almost as much as Waverly did as they turned once more to face the gaping maw of darkness that led into the too-quiet house.

Whoever had opened the door in invitation, they obviously knew they were there so there was no point in trying for a stealthy, inconspicuous approach. Nicole considered going back for the snowmobile but dismissed the idea before it took root in her mind. Getting it would only take time and, for creatures that were ageless, some vampires could be very impatient. It was more likely that whoever was within, would see the action as a slight or even a challenge to pit their speed against that of the machine.

All too soon, their boots hit the clear wood of the steps leading up out of the snow to the wide porch that framed the doors.

“Remember—”

“Are you two coming in or not?”

“Mercedes?!” Waverly gawped at the familiar, if slightly older than the last time she had seen it, face framed by a bob of collar-length flaming red hair that appeared in the doorway and struck a pose with a hand on her hip and the other raised dramatically.

“In the flesh!”

Waverly jumped at Mercades exuberant squeal and blinked to find herself crushed within a strong embrace.

“I— I didn’t know you were back in town?” Waverly giggled uncertainly. Of all the things she could have imagined when they got there, Mercedes ‘does your bratty little sister have to follow us?’ Gardner acting like they were old friends was nowhere on that list.

“Come in! Come in!” grabbing the couple by their clasped hands, Mercades yanked them both over the threshold and shut the door behind them. “I just got back today. I didn’t plan on ever coming back to Purgatory but Beth and Tucker were hellbent on burning through their inheritance and I had to. Didn’t expect to find squatters taking advantage of the family home when I got here.”

“Squatters with a fondness for blood and party busses?”

“I like to think of myself as a guest—”

“Honey! I know full well what you are and you are _no_ guest of mine! Just because you all played on my brother and sisters stupidity and got invited in, that does not make you guests! Also if you plan of staying we gotta talk rent and redecorating!”

Waverly bit her lip to hold in an unexpected laugh and shared a look with Nicole as Mercades fired back at the faceless voice coming from the drawing-room with a voice dripping with sarcastic whit as only Mercedes could. She had to agree with Mercedes though, the old Gardner place looked like it was in need of a good dusting, or twenty going by the thick layers of grey dust clinging to the dust covers draped over some of the bigger items in the hall and the dark wood of the floor and panelling the wall. Also, redecorating to pull it out of the dark ages where it seemed to have got stuck under the neglect of Tucker and Beth wouldn’t go amiss.

“Contessa?”

“Please, come on in, my dear friend.”

“Dear friend?” Waverly whispered waspishly out of the corner of her mouth as _her_ Nicole moved towards the voice with an almost dazed, quizzical look on her stupidly perfect face.

“More of an acquaintance,” Nicole whispered back over her shoulder. “Remember, don’t let them touch you,” she nodded down, drawing Waverly’s attention to the pink fog that was swirling around their feet and inching it’s way up their legs.

“I am quite alone and harmless, Nicole.”

“Contessa, harmless is _not_ a word I would ever use to describe you or your kin.” Nicole countered as she stepped into the poorly lit drawing-room to find the other vampire seated elegantly, posing in a leather, wingbacked chair at a small but sturdy-looking round dining table draped with an antique patterned cloth.

The light from the logs burning within the vast fireplace caught upon the lacy mask formed from links of gold that covered the lower part of her face and the rings upon her fingers as they played upon the tarot cards within her hands. Her dark skin and eyes glowed but Nicole could see by the tightness around her eyes and the trembling in her fingers as they turned a card and placed it upon a table was all an illusion caused by the colour of the flames.

“Where are your family, Katalin?” asked carefully, ignoring the proffered seat at the table, preferring to stand while she did a careful sweep of the room.

Waverly mulled the names Nicole was giving the total smoke show of a vampire over and over in her head, mentally flipping through her vast knowledge of all things vampires in her mental filing cabinets. _Contessa… Katalin… the sexy pink fog…_

“Wait a minute! You’re Kate? You’re a—” her words tumbled out unbidden only to stop uncertainly. She had researched Nicole tirelessly, drawn by the beauty that lay inside and out of the redhead and the good deeds she had done. This Contessa and her kin… they were brutal and savage, killing without remorse everywhere they went. They were _nothing_ like Nicole.

“I am a what, little one?”

“You’re one of the European vampires. Otto—” Waverly’s voice trailed away at the hardness stiffening her face and the flare of golden-orange as deep as the flames licking at the logs in the fireplace filled her eyes.

“My uncle Otto, yes.”

“Go on, Waverly. Tell Kate what you know of her ‘uncle’,” Nicole encouraged, placing herself subtly in front of Waverly in a clear warning to Kate as she did so. “She’s _very _good at researching,” she explained at Kate’s quizzically raised brow.

Waverly smiled at the praise and the use of the word ‘research’ being used instead of the usual teasing or dismissive ‘stalking’. It gave her the strength to continue with what she knew the other vampire probably wouldn’t want to hear or admit to if the stories about Otto where even half as true as she had heard.

“I know that Otto has had many nieces and nephews over the years. All of them children that were stolen from families he had slaughtered so he could bend them to his will before turning them.” What she didn’t say, was that Otto was rumoured to abuse the youngest of the stolen children, those too young to know that they deserved better, physically too.

“You’re right, she is good at researching,” Kate bit out through clenched teeth. “Amongst other things by the look of it,” she added with a pointed glance towards their clasped hands. “I didn’t take you as the kind to play with your food.”

“Waverly is no ones food,” Nicole growled back in warning.

“Hmm, I see.” Biding her time, Kate flipped over another tarot card, glancing between what was revealed in the cards and the young woman at Nicole’s side. “Interesting. Anyway, back to your research. It wasn’t until I was was in my twentieth year that I came across a ledger filled with the names of all his kin, that I found out that I had been stolen from my dead mother's arms a year after she was sold as a slave.”

“I’m—”

“Keep your apologies,” Kate waved a hand dismissively. “They are unwanted and unnecessary. You had nothing to do with it, child. Those that did, have long been gone, their bodies rotten away or turned to ash. I saw to that after I was turned.”

“After? Then you found out before and still let him turn you?”

“Actually, it was his elder sister I went to for that favour. I did that simply to spite him but, with what has occurred here…” her voice faded away, her throat bobbing as she got lost in the horror of that place for a moment before she shook herself free, the mask hiding her features glinted in the light, the links clinking together in a whisper of sound.

“My husband, John Henry, went missing in these parts, stolen from me and turned immortal by a witch. She refused to tell me where he was hidden so I needed the time to find him. I did a deal with the lesser of two evils in _her_ so I could get that time.”

“John— John Henry?”

“Yes. I’ve searched for him for years and just recently his name made it’s way to our ears.”

“D— Doc?! You mean Doc, right? Oh my gosh! You’re Big Nose Kate!? Oh, fudge-nuggets… Doc is still married? Too a hot vampire?”

“You know my John Henry?”

Nicole stepped between them as Kate half lurched out of her seat and reached for Waverly’s hand. Despite her bravado, the woman was weak, the bones of her wrist feeling like brittle twigs beneath cold flesh.

With ridiculous ease, she pushed Kate back down into her seat. “What has happened to you?”

“John Henry is the reason I am here. But, Otto was already coming to Purgatory,” Kate admitted. “I think you know why.”

“Bulshar.” The name felt rancid in her mouth.

“Yes. Otto heard that he was making a move on the area. That he is planning on taking down the Earps once and for all. He is weak, Nicole. He has been since—”

“Since Shae.”

“Since you survived, Nicole,” Kate corrected her. “You’re a survivor. _The_ survivor. You lived when every other vampire has died and that weakens him. It scares him. Otto thought to give fealty to Bulshar and for that he and most of the others lost their lives. I was trying to find John Henry when it happened so wasn’t there to witness it but I felt their loss. Otto, Ebbe, Kamen, Ravena, Petra, the others… all of them. All lost or taken captive by that snake.”

“And yet you’re still here looking for John Henry? Your kin are more known for their self-preservation that their bravery.”

“Yes. But, I couldn’t leave if I wanted to. None of us can. Bulshar and his wives have locked down the Ghost River Triangle. Once in, there is no out.”

“Do you know where he’s hiding out?”

“After all this time, you think to take him on? What changed Nicole? Or do I even need to ask?” Kate cocked her brow in Waverly’s direction. “Coming over all heroic for a pretty face?”

“Asks the vampire still looking for and risking everything for her husband after a hundred and thirty years?”

“John Henry Holliday was— is a rogue. A legend. He stole, swore and screwed his way through the frontier. Even Otto thought he might be a wonderful addition to our little blood-sucking menagerie.”

“You want to recruit him?”

“That was what Otto wanted, what I led him to believe I was okay with. I just want the man I love, warts and womanising ways and all, back. I can’t tell you were Bulshar is because I do not know but, I wish you and your ‘researcher’ luck in your hunt.”

Nodding, knowing the conversation was all but over, Nicole moved back from the table, ushering Waverly along with her.

“What about Mercedes? We can’t just leave her alone here.”

“Oh, I’ll be fine, honey! If she tries to bite me, she gets slapped.”

“I kind of like her,” Kate admitted with a fond smile, a twinkle in her dark eyes as she glanced at the feisty redhead. “I will be on my best behaviour with this one.”

“Do you think Jeremy and Robin will be able to arrange for some blood to be brought here?”

“I’ll make sure of it,” Waverly nodded.

“Oh, and no biting the delivery boys when they get here, Waverly is particular about that. You know, there is room in the fight against Bulshar if you want in—”

“As tempting as revenge is, I am too weakened to fight. Wait!” with a surge of strength, Kate lunged from her seat and tried to grab Waverly. She couldn’t let her go! She knew of John Henrey and Kate had to know what it was about the slip of a girl that had caught Nicole, the most powerful vampire anyone had ever seen, the only one that had survived Bulshar!

Before she could do more than feel the heat of Waverly’s blood in her face against the tips of her fingers, Kate felt something slam into her chest, capturing her body in an invisible, vice-tight grip. From inches away, she saw the glow of power in Waverly's hazel eyes, a crackle of lightning that flashed across her pupils as she brought her hand up and pushed back with little more than a flick of her wrist.

The room rushed past in a blur that ended as her back cracked solidly against the wall. Plaster and dust rained down over her head, choking her as she gasped in a startled breath.

“You- you’re a witch?”

“Your cards couldn’t tell you that?”

“No Nicole, they didn’t. I knew she was special and a Virgo with hair for days just as I know from old that you are a Capricorn with sweet blood but, they failed to mention that the five-foot, eight-pound soaking wet, slip of a Virgo would be tossing me through a wall today,” Kate huffed in exasperation as she tried and failed to regain her feet and settled for sitting in the dust.

“You do like to keep dangerous company, Nicole. You should be careful, little one, the Earp heirs hunt more than just vampires.”

“My sister hunts those that deserve it!”

“Sister? The Earp witch and the survivor working together… I can’t decide if that’s the set up for a very bad joke or just utterly brilliant,” she laughed.

“You’re the one sitting on the floor, Katalin, you tell me, how does it feel?”

“Like Bulshar is in for a world of long-overdue pain,” Kate acknowledged with a feral grin of anticipation as she watched them walk away hand in hand. She was starting to see an appeal to Purgatory that went beyond the possibility of finally finding her long-lost husband.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN 1 - To paraphrase Marvel comics when someone joined the X-Men "Welcome to the story, Kate and Mercedes... Hope you survive the experience!"
> 
> AN 2 - I did want Waverly to go all cannon wild on Kate and try to toss the table over but the muses wouldn't let me squeeze it in with Kate not finding out who Waverly was until they were just about to leave. And while Waverly could have been dramatic, it seemed like overkill to do it after nearly tossing Kate through the wall.


End file.
